TranscripT 


Access to Readiness 



Disability Summit on
Emergency Preparedness 


December 11, 2006 
Presented by: 


California Foundation for 
Independent Living Centers 
Primarily sponsored by: 


Also sponsored by: 




Access to Readiness: 


Disability Summit on Emergency Preparedness 
Agenda: December 11, 2006 


OPENING PLENARY 
9:00 - 9:45 page 4

• June Kailes, Disability Policy Consultant, Center for Disability in the Health Professions, 
Western University of Health Sciences 
LAY OF THE LAND 9:45 - 10:15 page 14

• Grace Koch, Deputy Director, Preparedness & Training Division, Governor’s Office of 
Emergency Services 
• Jessica Cummins, Deputy Director, Planning, Research, & Emergency Preparedness, 
Governor’s Office of Homeland Security 
STATE AGENCY RESPONSE 10:15 - 10:45 page 24

• Karen Baker, Executive Director, California Service Corps 
• Lora Connolly, Director, Department of Aging 
• Carol Risley, Chief, Human Rights and Advocacy Services, Department of Developmental 
Services 
• Richard Devylder, Deputy Director, External Affairs, Department of Rehabilitation 


BREAK 10:45 - 11:00 

COMMUNICATION 11:00 - 11:45 page 30

• Sheri Farhina, Executive Director, NorCal Center on Deafness 
• Dan Kysor, Governmental Affairs Director, California Council of the Blind 
• Richard Ruge, Strategic Development & Training Supervisor, North Bay Regional Center 
WHAT IS READINESS? 11:45 - 12:15 page 41

• Ana Marie Jones, Executive Director, Collaborating Agencies Responding to Disasters 
• Tom Guarino, Government Relations Representative, Pacific Gas and Electric Company 



LUNCH & AWARDS 12:15 - 1:15 (no transcript available) 

 
We Thank our Sponsors: 


 
• Pacific Gas & Electric Company 
• Health Net 
• Sierra Health Foundation 
• US Bank 
EVACUATION 1:15 - 2:00 page 48

• Mike Collins, Executive Director, State Independent Living Council 
• Fran Bates, Executive Director, Rolling Start Inc. 
• Jerry Davis, Executive Director, Easy Lift Transportation 
SHELTERING 2:00 - 2:45 page 60

• Greg John, Manager, Emergency Management Relations Pacific Service Area, American Red 
Cross 
• Bill Vogel, Chief, Disaster Services Bureau, Department of Social Services 
• Norma Vescovo, Executive Director, Independent Living Center of Southern California 
BREAK 2:45 - 3:00 

DEVELOP PRIORITIES FOR ACTION 3:00 - 4:00 (no transcript available) 

• Table Discussions 
PRESENT PRIORITIES FOR ACTION 4:00 - 4:45 page 77

• Table Presentations 
CLOSING 4:45 - 5:00 page 85

• Teresa Favuzzi, Executive Director, California Foundation for Independent Living Centers 



Captioning provided by: 
Caption First, Inc. 
PO Box 1924 
Lombard, IL 60148 


* * * * * 
This is being provided in a rough-draft format. Communication access realtime translation 
(cart) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally 
verbatim record of the proceedings. 
* * * * 


Opening Plenary 9:00 - 9:45 


Speaker: June Kailes, Disability Policy Consultant, Center for Disability in the Health 
Professions, Western University of Health Sciences 

(program begins) 


Teresa Favuzzi, Executive Director, California Foundation for Independent Living 
Centers: Good morning everyone. 


Group: Good morning. 


Teresa Favuzzi: My name is Teresa --the Executive Director of the California Foundation for 
ILC and I would like to welcome you to Access to Readiness, Disability Summit For Emergency 
Preparedness. 


To let you know we are going to get warm in this room, there will be more people coming 
across the course of the day and we are overbooked for this event. So, I appreciate your willingness 
to get cozy with each other, as we move across the day. 


To get us started right away, I would like to introduce June Kailes. June, take it away. 
June Kailes, Disability Policy Consultant: That is what I like, short and sweet; very good. 
Okay, good morning. A lot of friends out there, good to see you, good morning. All right, you 
know what to do with the cell phones and stuff. So, today I would like to talk about making 
some of these disaster lessons that we documented over years and years, real. And as my, 
that is my charge for today, I am going to focus on that. 
Can you all hear me okay? And you will pardon my side. We have to logistically kind of be 
creative here. 


I am June Kailes and I am the Associate Director of the Center for Disability Issues on Health 


 



Professions, CDI, it is impossible to remember, my assistant’s in the back of the room - - and 
we try to work together. So, the center is in Pomona, down in southern California. 


And I am a little bit more about me, probably some of you know that my perspective comes 
from 30 years of focusing my time on disability and aging specific issues. 
I am one of a handful of weird people who have been paying attention to this issue for a 
very long time, over the long haul, and my focus has mainly been on the applied side: policy, 
advocacy and training, and writing and producing guides on individual preparedness as well 
as the role of - - organizations and CBO’s or NGO’s, non-governmental agencies and faith 
based groups as well. I worked with Herb over the years in San Francisco, writing some of 
these materials as well. 


The center focused on enhancing the health of people with disabilities in terms of public 
policy and training and research and a lot of different activities. 
Now my charge today, my objectives are to put a human face on some of these key issues 
that are recurring, planning issues. And many of the stories that I’ll share today are composite 
stories, of many different peoples’ experiences. 
So I am going to focus on the planning issues related to public warnings and communications, 
evacuations, sheltering. And training and responding in partnership. And because I 
am me and those of you that know me know I won’t resist, I’ll make some recommendations. 
This is not a comprehensive list, just highlights. 
And my last objective is to review why we are here. What is the potential return on our time 
investment and where do we go from here? 


So, just to review, as the 2000 census tells us, there are 50,000,000 Americans with disabilities, 
one in five people have some kind of mobility, hearing, vision, cognitive or other kind of 
disability. So the instance of disability in the general population is about 20 percent. But the 
group that we are talking about today is much larger than that. 
Why? 
Because these numbers don’t include children under five, or those who live in group settings 
or institutions; the numbers don’t take into account that these numbers are quite higher 
among color, low income and world communities and they don’t consider the huge group of 
people who live with functional limitations, but will never identify with the d word. What is 
the d word? 


Disabled. 
Right. 


 



Often because of stigma attached. So you will hear me talk about people with activity or 
functional limitations than just people with disabilities. 


Now I want to warn you up front, some of these slides contain images that are not pretty. So 
if you need to look at your lap or when you hear the audience description, cover your ears, 
that is okay, just a little warning here. 
Now, this diverse population that I am talking about, that does have one common characteristic, 
and that is their margin of resiliency is smaller, and they have an increased level of 
vulnerability. 
And the 2005 hurricanes resulted in a disproportionate number of fatalities of people with 
disabilities, we remember that. For example, in New Orleans, 1,200 people died, 73 percent 
of the hurricane related deaths are people aged 60 and over, and even though they only 
made up 15 percent of the population, and 215 people died in nursing homes 
And you know what? 


Speaker (inaudible): There is power just there is no voice nothing is coming through. 


Speaker: He has power, but the mike is not working. 


June Kailes: Emergency preparedness, who has batteries? What do you need, triple A’s? I 
have triple A’s on me. Preparedness. Preparedness. And her assistant is here to accept the 
batteries. Get on that. 


Speaker: We have another receiver. He has power but no receiver. 


June Kailes: Let me know when we are set to go. Okay? Are you all set? 


Speaker: Just one moment, thank you. 


June Kailes: How many have been responders to some disasters in the past? Which event? 
Any of you, just yell it out. 


Voices: 

 
>>Earth quakes. 
>>Aircraft survival. 
>>1972 in the city of Alameda a jet crashed in to our apartment complex. 
>>I’ll talk about that later. 


June Kailes: Okay. What else? 


 



Voices: 

 
>>Northridge quake. 
>>San Bernardino fires. 
>>Flooding, Yuba county. 


June Kailes: Is it working now? Okay? We are working. Can you hear me now? Are you 
able to hear? 


Speaker: He has to put it on. Okay. All right. 


June Kailes: Great. Your assistant was just walking around. 
Well, in terms of number of deaths, we often forget about longer term issues, mental health 
issues. In New Orleans, the police department reported that in the months following the 
hurricane the suicide rate of the city was nine times the national average. And in a six-month 
period, there was a significant increase in deaths among elderly--Suicide, and primarily 
because of loss of social network and independence. 


Often we only focus on the initial numbers and not long-term after-effects. It is always easier 
to mop the floor than fix the roof. Wait for the problem to develop, and then work on the 
solution, rather than working on and finding preventions. 
And in the 2005 hurricanes, the outcomes clearly reinforce the gamble is not worth the risk. 
The steps were easy to list but hard to do and do well, and the devil is in the detail. I would 
like to say, if we are waiting for a Washington-based solution, we better not hold our breaths. 
So let’s talk about public warnings for a minute. 


When the power goes out and homes go dark and people are without TV, cable satellite and 
internet and there is no or limited if any cell service, and there is no land lines, or hard-wired 
phone service, then the radio becomes the primary and often sole lifeline communication 
tool. That means that people with hearing disabilities are literally left in the dark. 
Most people initially receive their critical emergency information from TV. But without captioning 
or sign language interpretation of the emergency information on TV, people with 
hearing limitations often were unaware of the scope of the emergency. 


For those with visual limitations, TV broadcast, depend on and use audio descriptions of critical 
information like maps, and listed information. And people with both visual and hearing 
disabilities are unable to obtain critical safety information when media doesn’t comply with 
existing FCC laws. 


Now this picture, is not what it appears to be. These two men on the ground prone had no 
idea about the curfew in New Orleans, one man, there showing the sign for deaf. “I am 


 



deaf.” The officers in the National Guard had no clue. These people never got the information 
about the curfews. 


We joke around, we don’t need deaf sections in a shelter, what we need are interpreters. But 
people with hearing disabilities could not understand evacuation instructions nor instructions 
in the shelters. 


People told us that, one man told us in particular, that he waited for three days in a shelter 
to get food, because why? Because he thought he had to pay for it. He thought he had to 
pay for the food. And of course, he didn’t respond to the announcement, the ridiculous 
announcement where they said “Does anyone need a sign language interpreter?” And didn’t 
see the signage that said if you are deaf and need assistance please contact blah blah blah. 
No tty. 


So, recommendations to consider - - I think California can play a great role in enforcement 
that is often reminding the media that the FCC requires emergency alerts to include visual 
messages containing all key emergency information and visual message cannot interfere 
with captioning. And text messages have to be voiced. 


California should use fully accessible audio and visual formats with their emergency messages, 
and we need to be creative in terms of this, in exploring some email and wireless 
network alerts that could be more dash more creative in terms of flashing warnings on the 
wireless systems. 


 
And you better use reverse 911 and maybe offering funding for that. And thinking out of the 
box, like using that satellite radio, or using the amber alerts on the freeway as more ways to 
get the messages out. That is streaming text on buses, as well. 


Okay. Evacuation. 


Talk about transfer trauma. When there are no plans and no way out, this is called “rack and 
track”; no this is called “racking without tracking.” A bunch of slings on an aircraft carrier. A 
pretty traumatic way to evacuate. 
Disasters commonly magnify the daily barriers in terms of transportation. You know, in 2001, 
83 percent of buses were ADA compliant, compared to 35 in 1990. 


But typically when we encounter a non-compliant bus, think need a significant longer transit 
time due to the wait, but you know what, during disaster, the consequences of non-compliance 
were sometimes fatal rather than just time consuming. So, magical thinking just won’t 
cut it. 


On the morning of August 29, 2005, my friend Marcy got a call from a woman in New Orleans 


 



called Benny. Benny is a wheel chair user and had been trying to evacuate to the Superdome 
for two days. 


Marcy in DC was sure she would be able to help her and knew the right people. After a 
whole lot of calls to the right people, it was clear that she was not being evacuated and 
Marcy stayed on the phone with her most of the day assuring her they were doing everything 
she could to get help and get her out. 


What was happening? 


Benny was relying on the same paratransit system that people with disabilities can not rely 
on in good weather. No surprise. It doesn’t work. 


Marcy was on the phone with her when Benny told her in a panicked voice, the water is 
rushing in and then the phone went dead. And we learned five days later that Benny was 
found in her apartment, dead floating next to her wheel chair. Benny did not have to drown, 
so the recommendation here is that system could work, if we include accessible transit. 


Providers as part of the planning team. Transit providers as part of the planning team. 
Another huge and common problem is that many groups’ facilities unknowingly contract 
with the same few accessible transit providers for emergency evacuation. This did and will in 
the future create compounded disasters in a real event. 


The attendant here, these women were just dumped in a parking structure in New Orleans. 
That man, we don’t know if it is, or are, he is a volunteer or family member, but we know he is 
probably very much of an unqualified caretaker. And, this could be our parents. This could 
be our relatives. 


While some state psychiatric facility and group homes evacuated successfully, others didn’t 
have any pre-arranged destinations for the evacuees. And family members were unable to 
find loved ones for weeks or months, they were sent all over the place. Many people with 
mobility and psychiatric disabilities were inappropriately institutionalized. 
Why? 
Because, people were unable to get the medications, or some substitute DME they needed. 
Simple assistance with meds would have avoided institutionalization. Some people in the 
community were evacuated to Texas state psychiatric hospital where they remained for 
many, many months. 


So recommendation, we have got to involve successful transit providers to be part of the 
planning team. We have to have more accessible pick up routes, and we need to require 
more diligence, in-depth review of evacuation plans for group homes and nursing homes 


 



and other kind of group settings. 


In terms of sheltering - - we often heard, during the study right after Katrina, “we don’t do 
special needs” from the shelter managers. We don’t do special needs. That is not an acceptable 
policy. But it is something that we have been hearing as long as I have been listening, 
which is over 30 years. Many shelters continue to refuse to admit people with disabilities or 
inappropriately refer them to medical shelter or hospitals. 


Sometimes just the assistance of medical shelters means that they have an excuse to discriminate 
against people with disabilities. And what shelter personnel reject people with disabilities, 
sometimes it is met in more than one way that they’re dumped on the streets. 


Partnerships. What can we do? 


First I think it is important for us all to acknowledge in terms of anti magical thinking, we 
know that traditional government response agencies typically are strained way beyond 
capacity, and are under-equipped to respond to the functional needs of our diverse community. 
And they can not adequately replicate our CBO expertise. 


Katrina shelter managers said to us, he complained about the length of time it took to 
locate assistive devices. It would have been nice to have someone local to provide a list of 
resources rather than taking staff hours on the phone trying to find equipment. A knowledgeable 
CBO person could have accomplished that task, freeing the shelter managers to 
engage in other activities. 


Now what happens is NGOs are frequently unfortunately overlooked as resources in terms of 
emergency planning preparedness and response. So, they are actually turned away. And yet 
we coming from the community have those trained eyes and ears. We can help with those 
quick fixes. That seems to be out of the realm of a lot of peoples thinking. 


You know those temporary ramps, how it makes a bathroom usable quickly, even port-apotties. 
How to help people replace meds quickly? Or, DME, replacing quickly, maintaining 
DME. 


Speaker: June maybe you can once say what NGO and DME means, I don’t think everyone 
knows but it is possible that-

June Kailes: I am going to use CBO for community based organization, that is where most of 
you are from. NGO is more of an international term or non government organizations like the 
same kind of thing. But sometimes you will hear something like CBO, faith based organizations, 
that is also included. 


You know we often know that CBO’s are good at thinking out of the box. They are not cre


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ative in doing what need to get done and mustering the right resources, we do what it takes. 
And this is out of our realm but some CBO’s even know how to rescue animals well. 


And I don’t know if you know but this is Mike Collins’ emergency preparedness plan, Mike are 
you here? That is, so I want to say that Mike still needs help with his plan, but - - it is, he is on 
his way and keeps - - and flotation device but we are working with Mike for a better plan. It 
is creative. 


Speaker: Downstream. 


June Kailes: CBO’s can also access networks of services out there, faster and better than 
untrained people. We know the networks and know where they are an how to access them. 
We also have that trust with the people that we work with, that is extremely unique and 
helpful. 


So, NGO’s can partner in assessing a- risk individual and working side by side with shelter 
people. And offering emergency medical assistance and reducing the needs that drain 
medical emergency kind of resources when people can get what they need in shelters. 


So the recommendation - - CBO’s can be key players in forces multipliers to extend the reach 
of emergency managers, and increase planning in response and recovery capacity and networks. 
So we need to be included in terms of partners both in shelters, and other disaster 
assistance centers to help at risk individuals who, we can be good at triage and prevent 
people from deteriorating and help people get what they need to regain health and mobility 
and meds and then they can maintain themselves in the shelters. 


So, CBO’s can help shelter personnel distinguish between people who can make it in a 
shelter and people that really need medical assistance, that can be done through what I call 
“fast “: fast, and functional assessment service teams. That we can actually get in there and 
offer that help to a core of trained and registered people who have the knowledge about the 
population we serve and resources that are needed. 


And we can get, muster those resources quickly. And prevent institutionalization. So, people 
with disabilities, we need to recognize are indeed not only victims, they are responders. 


Many of the organizations are run by and for people with disabilities, we have all services in 
California, but they are significantly unutilized during disasters and they can be quite helpful 
in response and recovery. So, people with disabilities can be responders. 


So the recommendation - - we need to ensure is FEMA as well as state reimburse NGO’s or 
CBO’s or response and recovery services and that our roles are clear, and pre-planned for. 
And focus on intermediate complexities of recovery, the housing, and shrink peoples transition 
back to usable housing. 


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After the gulf hurricane, this proved to be a Herculean task that includes having to sue FEMA 
regarding accessible trailers. It took a long time to accomplish getting the trailers to be part 
of the supply. So, in terms of housing, we have other issues here. 


Talking about transitioning back to where we are, we have to deal with an ongoing Catch-22. 
For people with disabilities who work and were home owners, the insurance payouts are not 
enough to rebuild, or pay off the mortgages -- the existing mortgages. People cannot afford 
to keep paying mortgagees and taxes on homes they cannot live in. 


The contractors are nearly impossible to find. And people are concerned about if they do 
rebuild, in a city and neighborhood that lacks infrastructure, what is going to happen if there 
is no transit or health care or if there is no shopping, if there is no personal assistance. Is 
the investment going to be wasted, they are rebuilding if the value of the property equals 
anything. 


And then we have the new building codes, that said everything has to be built three feet off 
the ground. Think of the added expense there in terms of ramps and average government 
pay out, right now, of sixty thousand dollars. Not enough to replace a home. 


So, recommendations - - last recommendations, we need to go-to persons here in California 
like in other states, that will orchestrate that and bring it together, someone to oversee and 
ensure adequate planning that incorporates diverse needs of people with limitations in all of 
these preparedness and response. And that is the capacity so that programs and services are 
accessible and do accommodate and include of our diverse needs. 


That go-to person, this go-to person could encourage and help find and sustain CBO’s’ 
involvement and integrate disaster work into their mission as well as help them participate 
in these teams, that can go out and help with response. Teams that could be integrated into 
existing state and local emergency systems in ways that are flexible, and collaborative. And, 
a person like this could also work on establishing mutual aid agreements, integrate skills 
of CBO’s and also ensure that they are funded and reimbursed for the efforts they put in to 
response and recovery efforts. 


So, in terms of where we go from here. Our charge today is to convert work into action that 
yields a solid return on our investment. How will we make that happen? 
For the disability community, it mean that is one more priority to our already overly packed 
busy schedule. And, it means added detail and depth and commitment to what is easy to 
say, but hard to do. Nothing about it. 


The charge is about making this real. Being at the table. And understanding what leads to 
involvement and actions into local and state networks. And it is also about acknowledging 
that we are only as strong as our weakest link and we must hang together on this. 


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Just as we worked to pass the ADA, the act to cross disability and aging perspectives and we 
have to broaden our definition so that we are not just using the “D” word, and threatening 
people that we need to be included. 


So we are only as strong as our priorities and commitment and energy allows us to be. 
For you government people here, California types, I know that a lot of what you hear today 
will sound overwhelming. But, the message is, you don’t have to do it alone. You don’t have 
to know it all or do it all. You can increase your effectiveness and reach by using us as partners, 
to share the plan, and if there are no plans, then let’s create them together. 


Together we can be more effective in pr- testing that large and diverse population with a 
smaller margin - - so I think we need to create an action network of some kind to continue 
the work we start and highlight today. 


So just remember, throughout the day, if we always do what we always did, we will always 
get what we always got. Is that enough? Knowing is not enough, you must apply. Willing is 
not enough, you must do. 
So again, to get that return on our investment, it is our safety, it is our lives, don’t give up, 
fight the fight, and make a difference. To expect less, to demand less, doesn’t, that is injustice 
to ourselves and those who come after us that is it. 


Thanks. 


Teresa Favuzzi: That was great. I am so impressed, June, you actually stayed within your 
time and everything. That was excellent. 


June Kailes: You threatened me over and over again. 


Teresa Favuzzi: It worked. Thank you for noticing. Grace, where do you want to sit? 


Grace Koch, Governor’s Office of Emergency Preparedness: I guess I’ll sit over there so 
everyone can see both screens. 


Teresa Favuzzi: That would be great. June, can I have you move your chair so people can 
have access through. 


June Kailes: Sure. 


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Lay of the Land 9:45 - 10:15 

Speakers: Grace Koch, Deputy Director, Preparedness & Training Division, Governor’s 
Office of Emergency Services 

Jessica Cummins, Deputy Director, Planning, Research, & Emergency 
Preparedness, Governor’s Office of Homeland Security 

Teresa Favuzzi: Next up on the agenda is Grace Koch from the Governor’s Office of Emergency 
Services, and she is going to begin discussing the lay of the land, how California’s 
system is set up, so that we are all on the same page. When she’s finished Jessica from the 
Governor’s Office of Homeland Security, thank you, will present after that. Are you ready? Is 
your Powerpoint up? 


Grace Koch: Yes, okay, well, I am going to try to toggle, I think it is. 
Well, as we are trying to work through the technical issues and if anyone has expertise it was 
working earlier. We can go and - - try to - - 


Speaker: I think you need to power up again. Close out. 


Grace Koch: Sorry, maybe we should - - take a break okay. Is that okay. Can we take a 
break? We are ready. We have connections. As you make your way back to your seat, - - we 
will give them a few more minutes. Okay? Thank you and sorry for the technical difficulties 
but we got going. 


I am Grace, Deputy Director of Preparedness and Training Division, of the Governor’s Office of 
Emergency Services, where I have worked for 18 years. 


It is always a privilege to present with June, and presenters that you have today, there is a lot 
of information that you are you are going to receive. June’s alone provoked a lot of thought 
and ideas, and it is also encouraged, because the passion she brings and dedication help 
government and public in general, get where we need to go. 


My charge today is to provide you with a lay of the land and describe OES and how we work 
together during disasters. We have a three minute video that we would like to play that is 
captioned and describes the system, three minutes, there is a lot of different pictures up 
here, there is one explosion that might be startling, it is a van. But it is three minutes and I 
think you will get an idea of how we work in California, which is quite different than other 
systems that you saw in Katrina. 


(video - -) 


1 



Grace Koch: Hopefully that gives you an understanding of the system we face in California, 
and our mission if you want to bring the slide up, the - - hit okay - - hit it again. Go to slide 
show. Up. 
The first slide, our mission as defined under the Emergency Service Act is to assist California 
in mitigate, planning and recovery in disasters and in human caused events, 
Our organization is comprised of not quite 500 people, and we have a Director, Chief 
Deputy that oversees the 24 hour warning center and efforts that are statewide, and an 
Office of Public Information. And we have a legal office, and then four primary divisions: 
Law Enforcement, Victim Services, Preparedness and Training, Response and Recovery and 
Administration. 
We are not quite 500 and that is okay, because as June said we don’t have to do it alone. 
The state’s role is truly to support local governments, that is where the expertise lies, that 
is where the, closest to where the communities are. So we support them, they are the first 
responders and we augment and support their efforts. 


We coordinate mutual aid and help get resources, and provide state recourse sources and 
we also are the coordinating point for federal resources. We provide training and train and 
exercise with them. We administer grants. 


Coordinating federal resources is key, I think you saw in Katrina there was mass confusion 
over who was getting what and where. All levels of government were requesting supplies 
and resources, but there was not a system for getting them where they needed to be. 


 
In California we have a system and because of our history of almost 30 disasters since 1988, 
and over 66 gubernatorial states of emergency, we have a system that provides for an organized 
process of getting resources out there. Use of military assets, federal funding, and 
before and after and during disasters. And we also deal with the federal Department of 
Homeland Security. 


In the last year alone our systems have been used to respond to the 2005 storm disasters. 
A couple months later, spring storm disaster and also 2006 summer heat wave, and we had 
numerous fires throughout the year, rock slides impacting roads and businesses. And we 
had the governor proclaim a state of emergency for the levees. 
State agencies. Right now there is over 150 prime near state agencies throughout California, 
if you add smaller more one purpose or two person boards, you are looking at 300. There are 
over 2,000 state employees up, they can all be brought to bear during a disaster. 
One thing that is apparent in California is that we need to have lead state agencies leverage 
their expertise. It is not OES’s role to be experts on public health or levees or fire, but we 


1 



coordinate those state departments with lead roles. 


And we have partnership, the first time I heard June was in DC when we went for a national 
summer looking at events of Katrina and put into action a plan, that has been sustained over 
the course of the year, for improvement in how we deal with people disabilities and elderly 
during disasters. That working group is including Department of Aging, Rehabilitation and 
Social Services, the Department of Homeland Security, the State Council on Developmental 
Disability, California Service Corps and input from the California Department of Health Services, 
the State Independent Living Council and Department of Mental Health. 
When dealing with the magnitude of events like Katrina it takes all of the subject matter 
experts to really put forth planning and procedures, effort that means something to the 
public we serve. 
The disaster role, some of them that you will hear today, Department of Aging provides 
support to care and shelter, they can use notification warning systems through their areas 
on aging, and other partners they have developed through day-to-day missions. They have 
medical health expertise too. 


The Department of Health Services is the lead agency on care and shelter, they have emer-
gency support teams that go out during disasters that work with June’s proposal for the Fast 
teams. They maintain a care and shelter plan, provide support and access food programs and 
language services. 


As we found with people with animals, they need to deal with the fact that the American Red 
Cross will not shelter animals, they will shelter service animals but how do you plan ahead 
of time to deal with people who need to evacuate with pets. We know people will stay in 
harm’s way if they cannot take pets, so we are working with the CARES’s system which is California 
Animal Rescue Emergency System that is planning an effort to address that. 


The Department of Rehab is one of biggest champions and I am privileged to know Richard 
and he has a permanent seat in the center. His view champions the cause of people with disabilities. 
He advised OES and social services and any other partners on disabilities issues, on 
shelter and recovery. The department of developmental services has a multitude of services 
throughout the state. 


Fire, medical and health services, provide a construction engineering expertise that can be 
brought to bear during disaster as well as back up generators that are located throughout 
the state. 


The Office of Homeland Security, Jessica will come on right after me and their focus is primarily 
terrorism and homeland security. They do funding, planning and coordination and 
they are responsible for the Golden Guardian exercise, which is state-wide, full-scale exercise. 


1 



The state Council for Developmental Disability is another partner with a purview and responsibility 
in the area of communication. Through area board offices they can support legislation 
in the area of improving policies and practices that achieve self-definition, independence 
and inclusion for people with disabilities. 


The California Service Corps is a lead agency for volunteerism, you will hear today from them 
about their efforts, that they are really trying to engage the non-governmental organizations 
and public in aid during disasters. 


We have a great website that you can plug in to volunteer and they have training programs 
that equip communities to respond effectively. So, with that, that was brief partners. As June, 
I think, laid the framework, it is not enough. 
We have to continue to sustain partnerships and turn the practices into actions, and develop 
the response system before the event occurs so we can have our plans in place, and training 
and exercises that will effectively respond. 


By law, the state and department are required to have plans on how to deal with emergencies. 
We have a governing plan that includes a multitude of documents that are set to a 
particular event, for example, the state plan identifies the process in which we respond. 


You will learn how we are organized from this three minute video. 


Supporting documents are more specific and drill down into areas such as public health 
emergency or agricultural or earthquake specific guidance. 


We don’t have 8,000 plans out there that no one reads, we have a system that allows for a 
structure to be developed and adhered to and we have specific discipline plans that govern 
how the nuances are addressed and identified for different threats we face. And we have a 
system requiring local government through guidance to use the state plan, to drill down in 
to local efforts. 


Some of the most value-added efforts that our occur in the local level and include non-government 
entities in the planning so they are already included, roles are understood, how 
they are going to respond is worked through before the event. 


One thing that is important is that regardless of plan, our focus must include information and 
guidance on how to deal with and include people with disabilities, elderly and people with 
animals. 


One effort in order for the state to be more prepared, administration required that all state 
agencies update their continuity of government plans, that is the plan to identify essential 
functions. Those are the functions that the public expect to continue despite any event that 


1 



either renders facility inoperable, like widespread flooding, but are essential functions that 
the public need to have sustained. We have to have a back up plan and relocation plan and 
procedures on how the services will continue. 


The information on website on the plan, 92 state agencies have submitted the plans, we 
are going through a process of identifying state wide focus for state wide plan. And then 
an exercise process that will validate the plans so we can continue to provide services that 
many of you, all of you expect to continue. 


One effort that - - I’ll spend time is on a plan for heat emergencies. And, that was a reference 
from the support document to the state emergency plan. That 13 day heat wave caused the 
death of 140 people, some of the state’s most vulnerable. 


When those events started to unfold the governor’s office immediately asked his state 
department to assemble and look at our response plans and our contingency for heat emergencies, 
that includes, briefly, Office of Emergency Services, Department of Aging, food and 
social services, ILCs, and California Service Corps, the CEUA and association of all utilities, 
water and power and telephone. 


The Department of Consumer Affairs, Department of Rehab, emergency medical and franchise 
tax board, as well as a multitude of associations partners, league of cities was represented, 
California association of county governments, the in-home support services were 
represented, welfare directors, ILCs, and a multitude --anyone that we could reach out to 
review our plans and methodology. 
And they came up with a plan that is final and it will be on the website by the end of the 
week, including information on getting information. As June’s presentation described, those 
who may not be connected to a website, how do we reach out? Through the skilled nursing 
centers or meals on wheels or welfare director or reverse 911 and a system called 211 system. 


A couple of efforts, planning efforts that we have, we look at regional 10 county events that 
require evacuation and shelter, there is an effort in the Bay Area, ongoing planning for pandemic 
planning and an executive order requiring that state identify continuity of government 
but also focusing public/private partnership and volunteerism. 


The state-wide mass evacuation plan which is under - - we are revising the plan based on the 
lessons from Katrina and we are starting a committee that I hope June will sit on to re-evaluate 
our assumptions for evacuating mass populations like the Bay Area and Los Angeles. 


We work with Caltrans for transportation issues and held conferences with planners, and are 
also having independent gap analysis to identify the state’s most vulnerable or gaps that we 
have in emergency response. 


1 



Briefly there are policy changes effecting people with disabilities and elderly. SB 1451 
requires those representatives to participate in the state and redesigning your plan, dealing 
with annals and animals and executive order, that is elderly a buses for elderly report that 
was done by stake holders. 


Those are a few of the areas of state that has embarked on and I know that I went through 
those briefly and know it seems like a lot but in light of June’s presentation we have a lot 
more work to do. 


With that, I think that Jessica will come up and take questions jointly. 


Thank you. 


Jessica Cummins, Deputy Director, Homeland Security: Good morning. As Grace said, I 
am Jessica, and for me, like Grace, our office became very exposed to the vulnerable populations. 
Purposes with disabilities and issues we needed to look at in Washington and working 
with June and Richard, it certainly opened our eyes and made me sensitive to the issues that 
we have to incorporate. 


My background is law enforcement. I was a police officer in Oklahoma City, I was there for 
the bombing and major federal disasters and came out to California in 2004. My background 
at looking at people with mental handicaps and aging has not really come into perspective 
until we were altogether in January in D.C. So, I appreciate the fact that we are invited here, 
and to give you an overview of the office of Homeland Security and what our job is to the 
state and citizens. And I am the deputy director, for emergency preparedness. 
Our role, OHS is the Office of Homeland Security, we advise the governor and are the liaison 
to the federal Homeland Security, working with them to get information. So the state 
is involved. We are the state’s agency for grant funding and we pass those on to all state 
agency and private entities, and we pass those on to the fifty-eight operational areas of state. 
As Grace mentioned we are responsible for training and exercises related to terrorism, this 
past year we hosted a training exercise Golden Guardian we have the state exercise-- that 
we try to involve as many state agencies and public agencies as possible. We went over the 
1906 earthquake and looked over evacuation and moving those people to Fresno and treating 
them, to stockpiled chemicals and things they might have been exposed to as a result 
of the quake. In addition we have a chemical release center there to try to see the response 
and handle that, and we had three different scenarios going on simultaneously, the Office of 
Emergency Services was a significant role player in that training exercise. 


Critical infrastructure is protection of key resources like banking, energy and finance sectors 
and, within the state of California, there are over 300 different infrastructure sites that are 
identified to be important to the state and national economy. 


1 



If you think of Long Beach and Los Angeles, the ports, it is 33 percent of the nation’s commerce 
to the rest of the United States, so we focus on critical protection, the grant is called 
-- and chemical zone protection grants. 
We look at information sharing and our primary role is not necessarily response and recovery, 
that is OES, as well as their planning and mitigation projects. We are trying to detect any 
signs of terrorism, and deter and defeat them through looking at chatter, open source and 
world wide on open source as well as working with the military and FBI and other federal law 
enforcement agencies. 


We aid in the implementation of Homeland Security presidential directive throughout the 
state. Right now there are 15 homeland directives, from implementing national response 
plan to food and security. We also help in placement of the national presidential directive, 
that is over sixty-three of those directives related to maritime awareness and other types of 
military issues. 
We look at federal, state law and mandates, legislation and related terrorism and home land 
security and how we implement that and work with partners to incorporate and focus on 
terrorism. We know what is going to happen, we are going to have another event, which it 
is going to be something intentionally done, or release of chemical or if it is going to be a 
natural event, we will still be involved, but our focus is usually on matters related homeland 
security. 


This is an organizational chart, the office of homeland, we have director, assistant director. 
In our office last year prior to my appointment, there were eight people looking out for 
the state of California related to terrorism. Now we are up to sixty and I believe there was a 
bill over the last week that we will probably merge with the Office of Emergency Services, 
because we do a lot of same roles and issues. So we are looking at being rolled into that 
office. 


Currently we have a deputy director of exercise and training, related to terrorism. We can 
-- we have a whole unit dedicated to coming out and putting on exercises, we also have the 
office of domestic preparedness that provides free funding. We bring out trainers and go 
off-site to any of the five training areas throughout the United States. Louisiana, New Mexico 
for explosives training, Alabama for chemical training, and there is Nevada and Texas A&M 
related assessment training. 


So if there is a need for training and we can tie it to terrorism we can get that training to any 
entity, public or private, and it is free, because we have the grant to do that, as well as help 
place exercises. Let’s say that you in this room want to put on a exercise, we can use the exercise 
colleagues or workers and develop an exercise specifically related. 


We have a deputy director of affairs, liaison to any federal agency, and we coordinate 


 0 



through that. Deputy director for, of external affairs monitors bill tracking at national and 
state levels. We have a deputy director of grants management, next week we anticipate 
four people coming to look at our grant application on the behalf of the state. Last year we 
received two hundred thirty two million dollars, the largest award in the United States, 
for the state of California for grant funding. 


In the next three days we will look at the different vulnerabilities that the state has, write up 
projects on behalf of the state and ensure, hopefully, care - - you are not going to be there - - 
but we want to make sure that anything associated with vulnerable populations or persons 
with disabilities that we incorporate into the grant, need training and maybe new equipment 
that might be needed throughout the state based on the population of individuals that has 
need of that particular transportation. The next three days are important to us in the planning 
process, the Office of Emergency Services will be there, as well as the other state plan 
agencies. 


Deputy direct for planning, my particular responsibility is not only homeland for the state 
of California, starting to slow down, it is also continuity of government and operations 
planning for the Office of Homeland Security to ensure that we continue functions if something 
happens. Also liaison, preparedness toward maritime security and implementation of 
national incident management with the OES, pandemic and there is one other that I don’t 
know; Patrick do you remember? Nothing that is too major. Certainly liaison, that keeps me 
busy. 


Director of critical infrastructure - responsible for database feeding in to the national database 
called a camp system. That is where we rely heavily on the operational areas, locals to 
tell us what they believe in their community are most important sites that need to be protected 
through federal funding that can provide information to first responders, and in this 
status, data we call first responder package. 


 
Take, for instance, the Oklahoma City bombing, when the bomb went off, and we got there, 
and we were not sure what happened, if it was a gas explosion or who was on what floor 
and we knew we lost half a building an we had lots of things to go through. We didn’t have 
instant information on the building, who was on what floor, what other materials would 
be in the building. So, what is going to happen with this database is we will put together a 
first responder package. What kind of chemicals are inside of building or other dangerous 
things? How many people? Who are tenants? What are evacuation routes? A lot of information 
that we needed that day rather than get hard maps out, this is available to the incident 
commanders. 


The last one, deputy director for of information sharing, analysis, that particular office 
oversees, we have a state terrorism threat assessment center and two regional assessment 
centers. Those are in alignment with the four FBI offices in the state, in Sacramento, Los 
Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco. 


 1 



We tie in the work of the joint task force to look at any information that is going on and disseminate 
that information to local or private sector and pass that information on as well as 
keep the governor advised. 
We have other projects that are federally run, by the department of homeland, called bio 
watch program. Our primary partners, Office of Emergency Services, California Department 
of Health, emergency medical, currently looking at funding several California medical assistance 
teams and I am sure we have enough medical teams in the state to respond. 


California was one of the leading states deploying critical capability to Katrina, but if we 
deploy people out we need to maintain resources in state in case something happens. California 
Environmental Protection Agency, oversee the chemicals through the state and we 
have to work closely with them because of critical infrastructure. The California Service Corps, 
who manages volunteer resources that show up when an event happens. 
California Department of Food and Agriculture. Hopefully you are aware of Taco Bell break 
out. We work closely with CDFA, funding Western Institute for Food Safety, providing training 
to not only first responders but others, in food and safety, we work closely with the California 
National Guard to facilitate resources they have. And Fish and Game, because they are 
responsible for spill clean ups. 
Our objectives, reduce vulnerability and recover as quickly as possible from the event that 
happens, there are dollars that depend on the California economy to the United States. So 
we have to recover and maintain our economic viability. 


Our methodology, national strategy for home land security, we look at that and we specify 
that to the state of California and then come up the state wide action plan. Four missions are 
prevention, protection, response and recovery. 
We mainly focus on prevention and detection and then we hand off to the OES, our area is 
prevention and detection. The six critical areas that we look at: intelligence; border security; 
domestic; protection of infrastructure; and emergency procedures and response. Making 
sure that we get the other funding from the other agencies that need that. 


Why do we need to review, because it is a dynamic process, changes based on what is happening 
worldwide. We need to take the lessons from the London and Spain bombings and 
implement those and make sure that California is up-to-date with what is going on. 


We want to ensure that we are successful as state grant application and make sure we get 
the most amount of money, because the nation is dependent on California’s economy. It is 
the fifth largest economy in the world, therefore it is significant. If you laid that on the east 
coast it would go from Delaware to Georgia, that is the mid-Atlantic states we are talking 
about. 


 



We want to incorporate all new initiatives, all the new laws. National response plan and then, 
Grace mentioned that is focused. We want to maintain consistency and optimize research 
and incorporate that on plans - - and science and technology, maximize emergency response 
with local officials and state government and all the organizations that June mentioned. 


And then make our scenario specific to California, what are the most likely things that might 
occur in California, what will happen here? And I believe that is it. This is the contact information 
for my office and I believe that Grace will take any questions, if there is time. 


Teresa Favuzzi: In the interest of time, are there questions? because we are running a little 
off schedule. One question… 


Speaker: I want to add on - - 


Speaker: Hold on we need to do the mike? 


Speaker: I usually don’t need one. 
I want to follow up on those busy work with public health and if you have not been in 
touch with the local health department you need to do that because we are all charged to 
look at planning for pandemic and in that is a large piece for special populations. And state 
department of health services will hold forums over the next few months starting in February 
throughout the five regions of California, and so it is good if you can be there and be 
involved. 


Thanks. 


 



State Agency Response 10:15 - 10:45 

Speakers: Eddie Aguerro, replacing Karen Baker, Executive Director, California Service 
Corps 

Carole Cory, Assistant Director, Community Relations, Department of Aging, 
replacing Lora Connolly, Director, Department of Aging 

Carol Risley, Chief, Human Rights and Advocacy Services, Department of 
Developmental Services 

Richard Devylder, Deputy Director, External Affairs, Department of 
Rehabilitation 

(program begins) 


Speaker: Is Eddie - - I am right here. 
Welcome. So, let me get the mikes up here. 
Each of your departments has agreed to speak to us about what it is that your department’s 
response is in emergency preparedness, and, preparedness. And there is no particular order 
how you can speak about that and what I would like to you do is introduce yourself you have 
three or four minutes to talk about what you are doing, and how you are going about doing 
that. 


Richard Devylder , Deputy Director, External Affairs, Department of Rehabilitation: 

Our role, as Grace described, we advise and support the governor’s Office of Emergency 
Service and homeland and social services on specific disability-related issues in the emergency 
preparedness response and recovery. To give you an example, we do get called in to 
the state operation center when the governor declares a state of emergency. 


I also have with me at all times a CD of the different resources disability related from physical 
to mental health to hearing and visual disabilities. With me at all times so I can pop in and 
locate information and get information to state operations center, when they need it. 


The other thing we did in terms of Grace speaking with the mass evacuation plan that is 
going to be released, I held four meetings across the state in 2005 with paratransit and transportation 
service providers and along with law enforcement, both California highway patrol 
and local law enforcement agencies, I put them all together to talk about evacuation of 
people with disabilities and seniors. 
What came out of that are guidelines that we developed based on those meetings, for first 
responders and local government, it is key and important, and I’ll close with that and Grace 


 



talked about local levels. What we develop in the mass evacuation plan are guidelines and 
things for local government to think about, and for community based organizations to 
think about, their area in terms of insuring that all those things are covered, different almost 
covered in terms of evacuating people with disabilities in the plans. 
As I said in the conferences, for Caltrans, that it is a local government and local planner that 
is needed to integrate disability service systems into the planning process for it to work. And 
that is based, that is what mass evacuation is based on. 


Carole Cory: I do community relations. Lora was supposed to be here today, but she is in 
Washington. She was supposed to get back last night but I have not heard from her, she may 
have been held up. I’ll try to share what the Department of Aging is doing right now. 


We do have a disaster plan, emergency disaster plan that is on the website that anyone can 
access, download and look at. We also have a plan detailing our continuity of government 
and how to ensure the crisis line remains covered 24/7 and payments to the agencies on 
aging continuation of services, and also there is a process to communicate effectively within 
the department and with our stakeholders, with the agency, Health and Human Services and 
constituents. 


All ninety departments in the state submitted that plan on September 30. It was reviewed 
by OES and we - - the Department of Aging got a 93, we did well on the plan. It took a long 
time to get it together. Our disaster plan is on the website, and can be downloaded. And in 
addition, each area agency on aging with the guidance of local OES offices has or is developing 
their own disaster plans to be used in emergencies. 


We recently developed two sessions for the California Association of Area Agencies of Aging, 
C4A. And we worked with the Administration on Aging and the area agencies on aging 
and had a special program on disaster preparedness. We developed a brochure for seniors 
and that is distributed at conferences and health fairs and working with the Department of 
Health Service on shelter preparations. And DSS would be responsible for providing shelter 
in the event that Red Cross is overwhelmed. 40 percent of the population the department 
serves, care givers, older persons and people with disabilities, are impacted by disasters, we 
are working with other departments and agencies on developing a communication plan for 
during disasters. We have provided key employees with laptops and trail phones so that text 
messaging can be used. 
How community organizations and individuals can participate in our efforts. 


We are studying methods or identifying vulnerable populations. Some of the ways - - we are 
planning on is working with Meals on Wheels, brown bag and adult day health care and - - 
and in-home support services, and they all have lists of clients that if need help that we can 
identify and contact quickly. 


 



That is about it. Laura would have more to say, but that is about what I can think of now. Can 
you hear me now? 


Carol Risley, Chief, Human Rights and Advocacy Services, Department of Developmental 
Services: You will say why am I here, it is also the office of left overs. So, I got the 
straw and I am happy to have gotten and got my first real foray into it in Washington, it was 
a unique opportunity to hear experts who have lived through things like that. I happen to 
be a person that gets caught in disasters, no one travels with me, but I have been in earthquakes 
and I was out of state in 9/11 and I was in Hurricane Andrew, I have been stuck in a 
few places. 
The Department of Developmental Services serves 210,000 people with developmental 
disabilities, the majority of them with cognitive disabilities, along with physical needs. They 
also often are the people who are the hardest to reach, the hardest to help understand and 
plan and be prepared for anything. Disaster being or emergency being the subject of today. 
We serve them through a network of 21 regional centers, and also we operate several state 
facilities that range in size from 800 people to down to 600 people. 
And we have been struggling with what to do. It is almost overwhelming when you hear all 
the things that you heard from June and all the things that need to be done, we are feeling 
overwhelmed. Where you do you start and where do you end, it will never end, you can 
never be too prepared or have too many diamonds. 
We have put together a committee and tried for diversity as we can, people with disabilities 
are on it. Regional centers are state operated facilities, providers of services that will be key 
player to us, those people that provide residential support will be key players to us in case of 
supporting people and families. We have a lot of population that live with family, particularly 
younger children but some adults still live in family environments. 


And related agencies, Department of Rehab, Aging and others that we feel that we need to 
communicate with about the needs of the population, and also coordinate with. You have 
already heard the issues, transportation, sheltering, folks with disabilities getting turned 
away from shelters for any number of reasons, mostly naivete about their needs, they think 
they need medical so they sent them to the hospitals. They are not sick. They don’t need to 
go to the hospitals. 
So we are beginning to try to just identify the issues. We have been fortunate to engage the 
services of June Kailes and her partner Brenda. Or that is her assistant. Right. To look at existing 
plans. Two things, our regional centers and facilities have plans. 


We want to look at best practices, what do people already know that we don’t know about. 
And also any gaps, using national plan review as the guideline and June’s group of people. 
And I think one of other main things we want to do, is enhance the ability of people with 


 



cognitive disabilities to plan for and be ready. 


One way is to give them tools, now you know it is easy to give you handouts, walk away 
and put it away, but people with these disabilities need a working tool to help plan, they 
just can’t take the paper home and think it will happen. So we are talking about consumerfriendly 
graphic materials, and actually help people develop their own tool. 


I also am of the opinion that many people have to shelter and place for 24 to 48 hours, I happened 
to get a chance to sit in on the Golden Guardian exercise this year, it convinced me 
more that many people will shelter in place. 
I also know that people who live independently or in supported living, their staff likely won’t 
show up. Why? Because they are going to be with their own families. And I think it is naive 
to think that these people will show and everything will be business as usual. 


How do you take care of yourself for twenty-four or 48 hours while you wait for that nonaccessible 
transportation to arrive? Which you know will be an issue. What things can we do, 
that is why we are here. We are tying to gather information and look at very good stuff that 
has been done across the state. In California we don’t need to reinvent the wheel, we need 
to adapt and get out to people. 
What can community organizations do? Reach out and be good neighbors to all your neighbors. 
I am convinced that our best source of support are the people that live next to you. 
And people with disabilities, at least, have a tendency to not want to know their neighbors. 
I don’t blame them, some of them are nasty people, they don’t like them or want them in 
neighborhoods, but that is what I’ll depend on, and in my house there is a person with a disability 
and I have talked to neighbors about the reality of that if I am not home. So I believe 
we have to get more neighborhood concepts going, and back to those days in general and 
more so for people with disabilities. 
You can help us field test products, to see if they make sense. You know we use graphics, we 
use videos, tapes, do they really make sense or do we think because in Sacramento we have 
all the answers, which we couldn’t, take my word for that. Materials, different communication 
systems. 
We are lucky to have organized case management system, I get alerts every morning from 
OES about what is going on. In a fire I am immediately on the line to a regional center to say 
check on the people that live in that area and I want to know if something is happening, do 
you know where are they and what is going on. I think that is one way that we are beginning 
to respond in a meaningful manner. 


As far as one other thing, I am concerned that we are talking about emergency preparedness. 
But whether or not the resources will be there, Jessica you are still here, I need money. 


 



I have to tell you, I think that at the same time we are talking about getting ready and being 
prepared, it is not a cheap activity. I would like to buy 50,000 to go kits right now for people 
living independent in our system. 


The budget process is just started. If you can do anything. Get to the legislature, let them 
know it is important. I am not supposed to say that I work for the government, I am here to 
help but the check is not in the mail. So if you can help, please do. 


Eddie Aguerro: Eddie Aguerro, California Service Corps, recently changed to the California 
Volunteers. You will see that out soon. I want to tell you about California Volunteers, or California 
Service Corps, however you want to hear it. 


I want to talk about the disability statewide task force that we have for inclusion and talk 
about citizen corps role in California and what - - I am going to use the ACSC, California Volunteers. 
Maybe I’ll use CV sometimes. And I want to talk about the specific project, and a 
little bit about next steps. So bear with me, I have five points here. 


First of all, I was thinking about this group, so let me add this little personal piece. Everyone 
here are about same thing, and how ever we approach this elephant or wherever we touch it, 
it effects all of us. I am encouraged that we are doing this, I don’t think we do it enough. And 
that is what we are about with our programs. 


We have oversight over something called national service Americorps program and we also 
oversee citizen corps programs, and then we also administer Cesar Chavez data center, it is 
all about volunteer and service which many of you have demonstrated by what you do every 
day. That goes hand in hand with what we are talking about. 


The disability task force, inclusion task force is a particular passion of mine. 


We have California volunteers CSC organization gathered a number of people statewide and 
regionally at local levels to form something we call disability inclusion task force, for inclusion 
of people with disabilities in service and volunteer projects at local and state levels. I am 
happy to say there are a half dozen of you in the room that helped us in the state level and 
some at regional and local levels, thanks for coming. 


We also have the responsibility of citizen corps of California and for those that are not familiar, 
we have basic five areas that we work with, the Office of Emergency Services on that, 
Homeland Security and that is the Community Emergency Response Team or CERT. Medical 
- - neighborhood watch programs, volunteers in police service, and Fire Corps. And a number 
of volunteer partners and affiliates like the California Centers for Volunteer, Department of 
Education, CARD, these are other acronyms. 


Citizen Corps is a mechanism that Homeland Security uses to fund various neighborhood

 



based, community-based volunteer service efforts. And so, as we go down the road of 
Citizen Corps I have one example that just rolled out for us, a marriage between Citizen 
Corps and Americorps and if you are not familiar with that it is a national service program, 
you might be familiar with the program called VISTA, in fact I would say there are VISTA 
among here. 
Anyway, there is a program that we launched, Citizen Corps, where we are going to place 
VISTA members at Red Cross chapters, volunteer centers, law enforcement, fire, various emergency 
disaster agencies locally and their primary purpose is to help identify and serve the 
underserved in the community. That could be people with disabilities or any other population 
in that community because it is community based. That is going to come out in the next 
12 months in the form of various workshops and presentations throughout the state. So, 
keep an eye out for the VISTA project. 


On the disability inclusion team, what I want to do is encourage you to go back to your communities 
and if you need to, contact us. Also, that we have brochures on the way out if you 
would like to get them and they’re also available in other formats, just let us know and we 
will get them to you. We want you to plug in to local efforts where we can help each other. 
One main goal of our disability inclusion task force is to get involvement from diverse popu-
lations, including people with disabilities, so we can be employing that resources. I am a 
little bit selfish in that realm, because I believe that all people are a resource and we can all 
be part of inclusion solution and the more we talk together the more we can do. 


The first lady of the Governor’s Office is in support of California volunteer effort and you will 
hear more about this, and hopefully you will be able to go on the website and do something 
in your community or a community you choose to be engaged. So, you will see us and you 
have heard our name and I want to let you know that we are you and you are us. 
Thank you very much. 


Teresa Favuzzi: Thank you, okay, so we have a fifteen minute break. And I encourage to you 
talk to these folks individually about the things that you may have heard. And we will come 
back in here at five after 11. 


(break) 


 



Communication 11:00 - 11:45 

Speakers: Sheri Farhina, Executive Director, NorCal Center on Deafness 

Dan Kysor, Governmental Affairs Director, California Council of the Blind 

Richard Ruge, Strategic Development & Training Supervisor, North Bay 
Regional Center 

(program begins) 


Teresa Favuzzi: Time to bring you all back in. 


And we are encouraging, if he can, to move to the tables here in the back area, so that we 
have a little extra room. And there won’t be Powerpoints at this point, for the next hour. So, 
you won’t miss anything like important pictures. Okay. 


Welcome back, as I said before, we are encouraging people to move and take more of the 
room so we have a little more breathing room. We have a panel that is focused on talking 
about communication and emergency response. Each speaker has about 10 minutes to talk 
to you about some of the issues that are in the communities they serve and are part of, and 
then we will have 15 minutes of question and answer to talk about solutions. So, Richard are 
you first up. 


Richard Ruge, Strategic Development, North Bay Regional Center: 


Sheri Farhina, Executive Director, Norcal Center on Deafness: Hello everyone, my name 
is, it is still not on - - 


Speaker: Sorry. – I’ll get it. 


Sheri Farhina: Hello, I am Sherry, and I am a CEO of Norcal Center on Deafness, which is a 
service for the deaf and hard of hearing individuals throughout the state 24 hours a day, in 
northern and southern California. We serve deaf and hard of hearing folks, in from birth all 
the way to senior citizens, and all parts of daily life. We are thrilled to be here, I am thrilled, 
thank you and good morning. And off to you, Richard. 


Richard Ruge: Testing, is this karaoke?I work for North Bay regional center, it is a program 
that we serve Sonoma and Napa counties and I am involved with June’s advisory group. 
Dan Kysor, Governmental Affairs Director, California Council of the Blind: There we go, 
hello, you can hear me, it is good thing it is not really karaoke. I am director of affairs for the 


 0 



California Council of the Blind. We are in existence since 1934 and we are composed of 40 
chapters throughout the state and we are, we have blind and visually impaired Californians 
of all races, shapes and everything. It is a pleasure to be here, thank you, 


Sheri Farhina: I 
guess I am starting, all right. 
I, as you can see, we have a diverse communication needs already, that is obvious. It is difficult 
to try to explain our communication issues within 10 minutes, but I’ll do my best and try 
to condense and consolidate as much information as possible. 
I have been involved with a variety of national organizations, trying to make certain that deaf 
and hard of hearing individuals have access to emergency services, of course, whether or not 
it is prepared for it, or reacting to it. Proactive or just last minute, most specifically there are 
two organizations. 


One, a woman named Judy Harkin that works with Gallaudet University in Washington, 
technology access program. And the other one is Carlean, she is a director of TDI, a telecommunication 
national organization focused on telecommunications . That organization is very 
heavily involved with the project, on a national level. 


Our issues related to communication access, specifically emergencies, every which way, any 
which way you can be contact in the case of emergencies for people with disabilities. We 
really need access related to communication, access related tools, there are so many gaps, 
wherein emergencies show up and happen, there is no communication for deaf and hard of 
hearing individuals as of today. 


The government activities related to communication, there is still no access to deaf and hard 
of hearing folk. Public broadcast for example, captions on the television, during emergency 
broadcast and times of natural disasters. As of today, live news reports are not 100 percent 
captioned. 


In fact we just had an emergency last January first, we are here, we had flash flood warnings, 
and there was not one captioned on the news for the deaf and heard of hearing folk, not 
one. We had warning and communications related to - - let’s say there is a safety and shelter 
for people to go to, no communication for deaf and hard of hearing people, not any. 


We still have issues related to communication during times of emergencies, obviously. As 
those two points illustrate, issues related to policy and technology for access. 291 for deaf 
and heard of hearing, an enormous area of my focus. In fact, last January we set out the 
national 911, it is a state stakeholders commission involved in users who are deaf or hard 
of hearing, and vendors of relay services, providers. And the federal partners, FCC, federal 
communication and DOJ and DHS, Department of Homeland Security, and reason for that, 
was because nowadays, deaf and hard of hearing people have relay services, relay, IP relay, 
hooked up with new technology, it is called video relay services VRS and IP relay. 


 1 



The protocol is used much like the old TTY, these things, these services are still not accessible 
to 911 or emergencies, in any of them. I am not sure if you recall in the past. In 1985, 911 was 
first established in 1985, there was no way for deaf people to contact 911 directly, not any 
way, and as a result, many deaf and hard of hearing people lost their life, suffered a great deal 
of course, because they could not contact 911 in any way. 


The law today, we have laws of course, we have TTY, old technology, you know they can 
contact people, the point of contact person, but even today when there is an emergency, it is 
not going as smoothly, there are still huge gaps in the system. 


We still have issues related to emergency warnings, through email, wireless devices, emergency 
systems such as - - emergency notification system. How can they find a way to contact 
deaf and hard of hearing people? Reverse 911? Perhaps. There is their type of reverse 911 
simply, there is no way to contact deaf and hard of hearing people. It is a great idea, but 
impossible to contact every deaf and hard of hearing person in the United States of America. 
The priority for getting a hold of us, in any emergency, that priority is not at the top of the 
list. By telephone or TTY or video relay, it is not a priority and we cannot contact them, 
there is no way. Also, an issue related to coping with bad communication, inferior or loss of 
often times inferior communication, and delay in response to any 911 call that is actually 
connected. 


To give you a sense of the type of situations that I am referring to, a deaf woman in Indiana 
was using a TTY, a typewriter for the deaf and her husband was going through shock, diabetic 
shock and kidney failure. There was no response on the TTY when she used it, she had 
to send her daughter who also happened to be deaf to drive a few miles from their home to 
the fire station, the closest fire station get help. Face-to-face, that is the only way they could 
get help. 


Last summer, in the state of Maryland, a deaf man who smelled a strong odor of gas from 
his home and he quickly got his family out and while he did that he dialed 911 and left the 
receiver off the hook. 


He grabbed his laptop on the way out of the home, and as he got out of the house, he tried 
to contact 911 through video relay and failed through his computer. The IP relay where 
you have an operator on the other end, he looked for another land line to call the local fire 
department, couldn’t find it, all of these efforts failed. Meanwhile, of course, he was still in 
the midst of an emergency 


During times of natural disasters, or emergencies such as we had to deal with different situations 
where for example evacuation notifications happened, specific areas for example, if 
there is a flood or there is city north of here, and the entire time town was flooded. It was 
terrible, a trailer park where it happened, a woman happened to be sleeping and she woke 


 



up waist-deep in the water because the notification doesn’t get to her, she had no idea and 
she happened to be deaf and was left out of the notification. 


Before that, they had gone out with the mega-horns letting people know, get out now, 
and of course the deaf woman cannot hear and she found herself waist-deep in water 
because she didn’t have access. Situations like this happen all the time. Hurricane Katrina for 
example, that was a terrible disaster and different, different situations. 


Or in cases of fires. But at the same time we can smell the fire, but -- the point of fact is when 
it comes to notifications, for deaf and hard of hearing individuals the system is not in place, it 
is failing miserably. 


Norcal is participating with the Department of Rehab, we are working with the Office of 
Emergency Services, trying to remember exact list names of the organizations, state organizations, 
that coordinates drills, exercises, where for example there would be one area, there 
is a terrorism attack and another area a chemical spill, another area a bomb exploded for 
example. And every situation of the emergency responders have failed to be able to communicate 
with deaf people, alerting or notifying them and letting them know they need to 
get out, each time they fail. 


The list is too long, areas, individual areas, and situations that we have asked for improvement 
that we need improvements. So, that to try to touch upon, you know, different situations, 
where notification of deaf and hard of hearing folks are imperative and share the basics 
of --there are so many improvements that need to be made, policies need to be set up and 
improved, set up, implemented on the governmental level, to work with us and emergency 
responders to better serve our community and population, and there are communication 
needs. 


Thank you. 


Dan Kysor: I am a survivor. I lived in a neighborhood where then-President Nixon declared 
our neighborhood a disaster, and I was survived that injuries, actually, I was quoted on the 
radio as an “eye witness” --that was really funny. 


They - - the one thing I learned from that particular disaster was that, roadblock situations 
where the National Guard had all the roads - - you had to go past a table and sign in and 
everything. I didn’t know that table was there and I kept walking through and “Sir, freeze.” It 
got to the point where I was freeze -- lie on ground and that sort of thing, I don’t know what 
they thought my dog was for. But at any rate, it was a sad situation and I don’t think things 
have gotten better today. This was back in 1972. 


One of my roles also in --I am an amateur ham radio operator and I love June’s statement 
where she talked about as a disabled person you can be a first responder, because I was 


 



working communications. I was net control station for something called Western Public 
Service Net, on the 40 meter band which is a frequency, where we passed health and welfare 
traffic to families in the Mexico earthquake, back in the mid-eighties, and I was also passed 
health and welfare traffic to families in the Loma Prieta earthquake. 


As a disabled person I felt equal in this situation, I was able to help. But one thing that we 
have been hearing and I would like to stress is that an emergency condition can be as simple 
as a personal emergency with an apartment fire, how are you going to get out. And people 
need, everyone in this room needs to think how will they get out of the building they live in. 
How will I get out of this building here? 
By the way, did you check the levees here? It looks like a big building, it is probably okay. 
But the point is, that we need to know at all times how are you going to evacuate a building? 


So, since 19 --the mid nineties we have had a state law requiring that all public buildings 
have an evacuation floor plan. Blind people have no access to a rendition of a floor plan, 
tactile floor plans are impractical in a lot of ways. In an emergency you don’t have any time to 
dash where is the map, let me look at the map. And they are costly. 


So one thing that the American Council of the Blind has been looking at is a method to have 
an auditory evacuation sound, one system tried was if you were coming up to a stairway that 
was like a beacon, every time you walked it would be a steady noise and then you got to a 
stairway and it would be a descent noise. More work needs to be done on ways of finding 
systems in buildings and large structures to get people out, and I would say not only auditory 
but my friend Sherry over here has just demonstrated we also need a visual evacuation 
plan, for people with hearing loss. 


My organization, California Council of the Blind, sponsored SB1451 that requires that all 
committees put people with disabilities on the sub-committees like the evacuation committee 
and all the other committees. And we know that in our bill we will require the state fire 
marshal to start looking at way-finding research. I hope that all of you in the room hold the 
state fire marshal’s office to that mandate that the governor signed because we really need 
to work on these evacuation processes. 


There is a study done by the United States Department of Commerce, talking about media 
preferences of blind and visually impaired people. Television and radio came out number 
one. I believe June already addressed the issue about a scrolling visual ticker over your television 
set depicting the emergency situation. I like to refer to it as - - and that is very helpful 
to me, let me tell you. That does absolutely nothing but wake me up. Emergency, but emergency 
-- we need audio and visual descriptions required by law. 


I notice that, I suggested to Gene today, and maybe you will help us, that is there are several 
bills going through the legislature and why not add to those bills and require audio descrip

 



tion in California and video description on television of emergency notification, because it is 
state funding folks. So I hope we can do that. 


The other issue that we have is a lot of the input of notifications for local governments for 
getting people involved in preparation and learning about the check list and all of that stuff 
that you need is in print, and/or on websites --that it is inaccessible. The majority of blind 
people are seniors that don’t necessarily know the web, because they are recently blinded 
and/or low vision and they don’t have that access. So, it is a challenge trying get newspapers, 
mailer, checklists, notifications out to people, because that is a big barrier in communication 
to people who are blind or visually impaired. 


That is it, really I don’t want to take up any of my partner’s time. But thank you very much. 
Richard Ruge: I am very excited to be here, and I enjoy talking about the joy of, power of 
disaster preparedness. I want to talk to Benny, June’s friend. That is why we are all here, so we 
don’t have any more unnecessary deaths and trauma. 


Disaster preparedness is the most powerful curb cut issue that encounters, it opens doors 
that we want to pass through for decades, and I had --I lead the northern California SSI task 
force and I spoke to one aide from congress locally and one in Washington. 


And, through disaster preparedness, I called together six offices to talk about it and community 
leaders, legislative offices, people in the state, and in the counties, have wanted to talk 
to me about this issue. So, people do want to talk to us. No one wants to turn out like the 
mayor of New Orleans or governor of Louisiana. 
I have bad news and good news, actually great news. First the bad news. On communication 
barriers that I have seen over the past 10 years, pre-Katrina. What I discovered within myself 
and others, there is tragic, unexamined and assumptions about disaster preparedness. The 
emergency system has limited knowledge of vulnerable populations, our number and needs. 
Vulnerable populations have limited knowledge of emergency services, their capabilities and 
resources. 


Also, I have found this: some populations might not consider other populations when they 
do their findings, and they need to bring everything and everyone together. When I discovered 
this was an issue I went to the Red Cross, and asked if they are ready to shelter the 
22,000 developmentally disabled people in the county, and she asked me to describe their 
characteristics and I did that, before I finished, her eyes got bigger and bigger and she said, 
you do it. 


As June pointed out, there is a “we don’t do special needs” issue. So then I got interested, 
going to the Office of Emergency Services in California, up here in Sacramento, and got on a 
couple committees, just by my own invitation. I suggest you do that too. 


 



I talked to an OES representative on a break and said, who is responsible for vulnerable 
populations. He smiled and said, everyone is. And so then I went to FEMA training, because 
I want to talk to the feds, and I asked the same question, who is responsible for vulnerable 
populations. He said it is - - it is a hole. A hole in the system. 


So, one thing that we really need to realize, in a county Office of Emergency Services, all 
three turn personal estimate that if an earthquake like the 1906 earthquake occurred with 
the population of five hundred thousands there will be 5,000 deaths and 30,000 injured. That 
is 30,000 new disabled people. And we need to take that into account. That when a disaster 
occurs, new disabilities arise. 


So we need, emergency services if you look at it, they are under-staffed and under-funded 
and they are overwhelmed now, if, even without a disaster, they could not take care of us all. 
We need to, we really need to be involved. 


Now let’s get to the great news or possible solutions to identified barriers. 


First thing, I have five recommendations. First, thanks to President Kennedy, give up thinking 
about what emergency services can do for us but what we can do for them. We really need 
to start thinking that way. 


My second recommendation, recognize and demonstrate the joy and power of disaster preparedness, 
make it a way of life and recognize daily that survival of us and family and friends 
depend on our active involvement. 


My third recommendation, vulnerable population advisory committees are established 
throughout the community. As you notice in all the slides, there was not any vulnerable 
population committees, or representations. So, we need to add those to the slides. Make 
certain that your local agencies’ advocates are active live participating operational areas and 
committees are they want to listen to you, and want your participation. There are funds that 
we can access, but we must be at the table, I am regularly asked to participate in grants and I 
hope we talk about grants this afternoon. 


My fourth recommendation, we speak of disaster preparedness, we speak in three distinctions. 
Focus discussion, discipline and in the bounce all over the place when you plan. You 
notice that happens when you talk about preparedness. Think of it as a large and complex 
puzzle. When we talk, we need to be clear about what section of puzzle you are working on. 


And three distinctions -

 
Individual preparedness. 
Community based preparedness. 
And infrastructure preparedness. 


 



Fifth recommendation, state and national protection be adopted, we must all agree on a 
shared vision and what our goals and objectives. We must include all sectors and create a 
sense of urgency. 


Are there working model programs? Is there working models for personal preparedness? 
Absolutely, go on the net and get yourself stuff to be prepared. Is there working models for 
community based preparedness? There is a good one developing in Santa Rosa called Cope, 
which is being created by seniors beginning to prepare themselves in their neighborhood. 


I propose that our consumers begin to prepare their apartments and neighborhoods in case 
of emergencies. As Carol points out. If any one of us needs to be rescued in the aftermath of 
disaster, which includes me, more than likely it will be a neighbor. Not a first responder or 
social worker, attendant may not be able to cross police barricades, we need to get to know 
and prepare with our neighbors. Is there working models for preparedness? This is where 
the work need to be done. 


We must be establish a state and national protection policy so we know the vision and we 
must establish those advisory committees, throughout the structure. We must clarify roles 
and responsibility throughout the structure and we know who is responsible. Right now, we 
don’t know. 


We must clarify funding streams so those that are responsible can be funded. We must train 
neighbors and business and non-profits to shelter in place. We must train on how to put our 
services and businesses back together, and communications systems must be put in place, 
which will be down during disasters. We need to deal with issues of medication retention 
and with attendants crossing the police barricades. 
In conclusion. The general population has not acted on emergency service warnings or 
brochures or plans. I see our community energizing the general population. Think of how we 
will be thought of by neighbors if we inspire them to prepare if a disaster occurs. We have the 
opportunity to be leaders, the doors are wide open, please pass through them, if you have 
not done that yet. Great joy and power is on the other side. 


Teresa Favuzzi: So we have some time to actually talk to each other, and, if, do, are there 
anyone with questions for the panel? 


Dan Kysor: I have one point. I just wanted to mention that two counties in California are 
doing an excellent job at providing alternate formats for emergency preparedness information, 
Los Angeles and San Francisco. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention those two counties. 


Teresa Favuzzi: Thank you. Are there any other questions? We have two and I am going to 
give Kim a mike and we want to make sure people use the mikes. Please. 


 



Speaker: I am from the state council, you propose excellent recommendations but obviously 
they are daunting, and do you envision how they can be divided up so that everyone 
takes responsibility in terms of state agencies? And local communities? 


Richard Ruge: That is where I talked about, why I talked about -- that is why I talked about 
you begin to think differently. To me it is not overwhelming or daunting, we need to break 
it into individual sections and take part in the process, and realize that what is on the other 
side of that, is great joy and power. 


One thing that I - - we need to develop easy to understand acronyms. 


I have one called “party.” Plan for a neighbor party for two weeks. 


 
P--plan and prepare. 
A--act it out. 
R--reach out to others, and 
T--treat yourself to treats, disaster preparedness treats. 


And when you have your Christmas holidays you give away emergency supplies and things 
like that and why, because we care. You have to understand there are people that are going 
to die out there, and so it is more daunting to do nothing and allow people to die because 
we know better, so I think that it is easily done, if we all work together. We have a lot of 
energy just in this room. 


Speaker: I am Christina from the California Foundation for Independent Living Centers. My 
question, to both panels, have any of you had the opportunity to work with the Department 
of Education on preparing students while in the classroom in case of disasters? 


Richard Ruge: I have, do attend operational area in Sonoma, and representatives from 
special Ed, there is planning going on. 


Speaker: It is conducted regionally and not state wide yet? 


Speaker: I think the answer is yes. 


Carol Risley: I have to think the answer is typically yes, we all get told regularly that emergencies 
are local problems first. And knowing that, we are seeing most of that type stuff 
going on in individual schools, individual districts. The question that I don’t know the answer 
to, how common is it from place to place? 


Even if it is going on in one place or another, there is probably a lot more going on then 
we know about but it is going on inside, and the problem is how to cross it over so we, 
the people we are most concerned about besides ourselves, we get access to the existing 
resources that are already going on. 


 



We, in our department because we -- education pretty much serves our younger population, 
we hope they are doing something but we have not had a conversation and you just raised 
an issue for me to go over and talk to them. 
Speaker: The cross over - - thank you, the cross overs you were talking about, it happens. A 
lot of you are parents, grandparents of kids in a school, I know for me, I have two kids. And 
I have gone to school and talked to the teachers and I have talked to the school counselor 
and gone to the board meetings. That is how you get in, and try to get everyone working 
together. 


Grace Koch: This is, have good point about parental involvement and finding out, there is 
a bill that was passed, I’ll get the number to Teresa, to give you, that requires the secretary 
for the Office of Education to develop publication of materials for widespread distribution 
throughout the state regarding disaster and emergency preparedness, there is a bill. I 
don’t know the time frames but they will be working with offices to insure that materials are 
embedded the “just say no “or the fully sustaining message that is, start in early education. 


Speaker: Can I interject? There is a state-wide effort with families and children, with OES, 
and a number of private sponsors, that have provided disaster emergency kits to children all 
throughout the state and schools. That is still ongoing. 


Sheri Farhina: I want to respond to several things. We are talking about access to information. 
And for our population, you know, written information is fine, the average reading level 
for deaf and hard of hearing adults, nationally, is about fourth grade, fourth grade reading 
level. So really it depends on the kind of language you use, in that information, in printed 
information. 


 
The second issue for deaf people, second issue, they prefer ASL videos, American Sign Language 
on video. You know, supplied by a person who uses American Sign Language. It is 
direct communication and direct communication with a language, native language of deaf 
people. It is their natural language. 


And related --speaking of education, I am a little concerned related deaf and hard of hearing 
students. An example, probably two weeks ago, Merritt Middle School, there was a bomb 
threat at the middle school-- made a bomb, a home made bomb and got it online and put 
this information together. Can you imagine? All that is online. 


He brought it to school and showed his buddy. Because of the training that the children 
have gotten fortunately at school, it was reported to the teacher who then of course called 
911, and they immediately locked down the school. Immediately, and my daughter attending 
that school had a cell phone and the reasons for that so they can communicate with me, 
deaf mommy. So she used text messaging capability. She didn’t tell me everything I am 
sure. But, hello, the phone bill, I know she is not just talking to mom. 


 



She was very fortunate and able to text me and notify me was to what was going on when 
there was a lockdown, otherwise I would have no idea, and my immediate concern was, 
going to the deaf students at the middle school. 
But right now Norcal’s, we do not get through to the school to check to make certain that 
deaf students were aware of what is going on, it depends on if they have an interpreter with 
them in class, or if perhaps they would have gotten the information in the classroom. Why is 
there a lockdown, if there has not been interpreter with the deaf students they would have 
had no idea. Can you imagine how frightening that is to the students to not know what is 
going on, to not know there was a bomb threat? Can you imagine? It makes no sense and it 
is a frightening experiencing. You can certainly reduce stress involved, of being in a situation 
like that, in an emergency situation when you have access to communication. 
That is the point, it is so important. 
There are so many efforts we need to do, locally, working with parents like you said or 
working with parents and schools, educational front to provide emergency responders 
themselves, access to the able too. We need a round table with emergency responders, 
making them aware of and increasing awareness of the varieties of communication needed 
in all areas. 
There was one other thing, because of our efforts nationally related 911 stakeholders and 
commission speaking to us about establishing - - why we have spoken to the FCC about 
communication needs. What are they, and how can we solve these problems. 
The FCC just held a conference, related to the e911 access for deaf and hard of hearing 
people and we hope that after that, the results - - we will have a second conference with 
people with various disabilities at the White House, to bring in all the police, police chiefs, all 
other emergency agencies and responders, and the n g 91, reverse 911. Now it is announcing 
an award of a winner of that bid, to improve information access to all psa p all over the 
country because that is not going to happen for the next five years even if it is implemented 
today. That is sad. 
Teresa Favuzzi: Thank you very much. 


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What is Readiness? 11:45 - 12:15 

Speakers: Ana Marie Jones, Executive Director, Collaborating Agencies Responding to 
Disasters 

Tom Guarino, Government Relations Representative, Pacific Gas and Electric 
Company 

(program begins) 


Tom Guarino, Government Relations Representative, Pacific Gas and Electric Company: 

Test, test, 1,2,3. 1,2,3 - - okay. 


Technology is wonderful, good afternoon, or almost good afternoon. All that is between you 
and a juicy hamburger is me and Ana Marie. So we will try to keep this focused and on track, 
that has been a fascinating conference so far. I especially like that last answer, I know how 
much people get the truth from your children by text messages. Can you write that down? I 
know I don’t, but technology is great. 
I am not Ana Marie, I am Tom - - with PG&E, and we are pleased to be here today and I want 
to recognize Sylvia over here in the corner that helped underwrite the conference. Thank 
you, Sylvia. Polly from PG&E. 


I have a couple comments and given the time I want to turn it over to Ana Marie. I’ll give you 
a PG&E perspective, and I will be around to answer any questions that you have, and let her 
fill in the detail and talk about the partnership that we enjoy in the East Bay. 


I have been with them for five years now and am manager of public affairs for area two. 
That is Alameda and Contra Costa counties. We have seven areas within PG&E, so there is a 
number of colleagues on my level that each particular area has a director, as well. 


As a company, we really focus on what we call “four e’s “. Economic development, education, 
and two of the e’s are pertinent to today’s conference, environmental and emergency 
preparedness. When it comes to environmental, I would like to mention briefly some of the 
priorities. Number 1, we take a leadership role and are really concerned about what is happening 
on the global warming scene, and our CEO has been very involved both with the 
governor and legislature. I think we were the only utility that embraced bill 32 that is made 
reference to, and we are pleased so that implemented and that addresses climate change 
issue, green house gas effect, that is, it is having on our lives. 


The reason I mention that, especially individuals of PG&E that are out in the community and 
seeing bizarre strange things. You only have to go back to the summer when we had 10 days 


 1 



of 100 plus degrees temperatures. A heat storm and we are ready for winter but now we 
have heat storms. 


And it caught some of our company and sister utility companies, both private and public, off 
guard. In our case we lost 1,200 transformers that could not make, take the demand from all 
of the air conditioners that were running at the time. As a result we really, we re-organized 
some of how we respond to disasters, as well. 


As I mentioned there are several areas within PG&E and we have set up area emergency 
centers, the one in the East Bay is in Concord, and we just have it up and running hopefully in 
time for what could be some serious winter storms. 


But each center has a new position called Local Customer Advocate. So many times we work 
with agencies, especially fire or police and others, and in the midst of everything, the customer 
would be left behind, people like you and me, who might be without power for days. 
And with our new organization we hope that is going to be addressed, those in the disability 
community, hopefully we will have good communications with agencies like yours and those 
you represent. That we will have a direct link to the local customer advocate positions. 


I want to mention also, four particular programs, Sonya may or may not be familiar with. We 
have a program for low income individuals, called the CARE program. And, many of you may 
or may not be familiar, if you are low income you can receive a 20 percent discount on the 
PG&E bill. Any extra dollars that we can put in low income customer pockets the better prepared 
they will be. 


We also have an energy partners program, again for seniors and low income. This is essentially, 
we will buy refrigerators, ovens, appliances to make sure that seniors, those that might 
be in jeopardy or have faulty equipment, have good viable appliances that are energy efficient 
and reliable. So, that is another program I wanted to pass on. 


And something that, for example, I am doing in our area and I believe my counterparts are, 
we are going to --in Alameda county there are 400 agencies that have agencies with the 
county, and we are doing an audit on each agency to make sure they are saving as much 
money on the bill and they are as energy efficient as they can be. We have free light bulbs to 
window tinting to thermostats and LED exit signs. Whatever we can do to make them have 
more money for services, that is the objective. 


And I am sure you are, you may have heard the other day about we now have bills that are 
being produced in braille. Which is something that is new, and I believe check with Sylvia, I 
think we are the only utility besides one in Texas that is providing that service. 


And, finally before I turn it over, I talked about partnership that our local office has with 
card. Not only is Ana Marie a great ringleader as far as emergency preparedness movement, 


 



but you, I have 300 people that are on my advisory board, so, and they are from all walks of 
life, and if you are or any clients happen to be in Alameda or Contra Costa and interested in 
serving on the advisory board, we welcome you. 


Their goal is to provide feedback on the good, bad and ugly, that they hear about, not me, 
but about PG&E. And if there is something good happening, maybe the employee spent 
time working on their time, maybe we want to recognize it. Or if there is something bad we 
want to correct that immediately. And Ana Marie was elected as chair person of that particular 
group, and my colleagues in the other areas have similar organizations. 


So, if you need, I will be around for lunch if you have questions for me; I will be here and 
Silvia --and again the simple phone number if any one of your clients have any questions 
about any thing, we have really centralized our services and you can call 1-800- PGE-5000. To 
keep it simple, without further ado, let’s turn it over to Ana Marie. 


Ana Marie Jones, Executive Director, Collaborating Agencies Responding to Disasters: I 
realize there is great pressure because I am the last person before lunch, and I am going to 
do my best to not go fast but I am from New York so forgive me. 


Thank you for being here and I want to thank PG&E and the sponsors because we all get on 
the same page. We are going to do the same things we have done for many, many years. 
Since I have very little time I’ll ask several questions, and I request is to raise your hands, nod 
or do whatever to give us the answer. Because truly learning from each other is one of the 
most important things that we can do during any time we are together. 


By a quick show of hands, how many have been involved in disaster preparedness for vulnerable 
populations for more than 17 years, from Loma Prieta or before. A few hands. The truth, 
everyone that just raised your hands, you will be able to agree with that, we have been discussing 
the same issues since then. 


In fact, most of the issues related to serving people with disabilities, not only were they not 
new for Loma Prieta, they have been documented since Hurricane Camille in 1969. So I want 
to give that perspective to start out because what we tend to do, just humans, is to re-invent 
life every time a new thing happens. So, we had hurricane Katrina, and truly if I had a dollar 
for every time I have heard, “Hurricane Katrina has opened our eyes”, how many have heard 
that. 
Let’s be clear about this --I did mention that I am from New York, I tend to be blunt-- if our 
eyes get any more open they will be ripped off the back of our heads because we have had 
these very difficult issues pressed in our faces for decades. And there are a few reasons 
why we have not moved forward. Is there anyone in the room that would like to say that the 
people with disabilities and service providing organizations are prepared? Anyone willing to 
put that out there? Raise your hand, be proud. 


 



And truth we all know, that it is not happening. Right? Anyone here want to guess as to 
why? No matter how many times we have this issue we don’t take steps forward? Money. No 
money, that is one of the most popular things that people say, anyone else? Overwhelming. 
How many agree this is a big sloppy overwhelming topic? 


Speaker: Low value. 


Ana Maria Jones: Is everyone clear that we put little value on the whole preparedness piece 
and when we talk about response we don’t talk about response for the most vulnerable communities. 
Anything else? 


 
People all think that someone else is responsible. Everyone clear on this, is we always think 
it is someone else’s responsibility. What I would tell you is, it is not just disaster preparedness 
that I am talking about, when I say many years. I was born in a special needs household, a lot 
of the issues that we see, low income and all those sorts of things. 


In truth, the conversation is very different for people who have special needs. The very discussion 
we live in about preparedness being the thing we do because of disaster is one of 
most disempowered conversations we can have. I would like you to consider that everything 
we know about preparedness and readiness has been defined by the agencies whose entire 
skill set is about disaster response. Everyone clear? 


That it is our governor’s office of emergency and FEMA and Red Cross and they do great and 
fabulous things. Let’s be really clear, part of the reason we are as strong as we are as a nation 
is because we have those organization that do as well as they do. 


But we have to admit that we are unbelievably late in the world of preparedness, and world 
of response related to vulnerable populations, anyone disagree? Awesome because - - I want 
to put out a couple things. 


One - - so long as we articulate the conversation as preparedness as the terrible thing we 
have to do because worse things happen, you will never achieve more than 15 percent of 
population buy-in. And that would represent double of amount that bought up to this point. 
Clear, you cannot get people to all, get all passionate by a negative. And we can prove that. 


How many would like to become old with lots of money in the bank? Raise your hands. 
Excellent. How many are planning on keeping your teeth, you will like them forever? If you 
still have them now. 


The truth is there are a few things we know, most people don’t plan. Okay, we don’t plan for 
the things we want, if we did, we’d be those flossing millionaires of the world, are we not 
clear? 


 



The very fact that our biggest evident message is “have a plan “. That means so little to 
people, that just right with that conversation you have eliminated most of the audience from 
jumping in. Another myth about plans. Anyone noticed that we keep talking about plans 
and people have lots of them. 


Who is missing a binder? Anyone here who doesn’t have a binder, some of you have twenty 
or 30. Yes? The truth is, it doesn’t come down to the plan, we call them RWR binders. That is 
“read while running” binders, that is suddenly something will happen, we are all going to run 
to the book shelf and snatch it and the world unfolds and it is like a Vulcan mind meld, it is 
open up and under crisis go right in and you are going to know what to do. Is that reasonable? 
For anyone? 


How reasonable is that for people with disabilities? It is even less. And I think June said it, 
where is June? It is that margin of resiliency and truth is when you deal with people who 
have barriers to every day life, we are talking about every day life, when the lights are on and 
everything is good, there are still obstacles. And then you take down the system and expect 
people to move forward. That is not realistic. 


We need to do serious re-thinking. Information is not now or will it ever be inspiration or 
implementation or incentive for participation. We have going crazy on account of the idea of 
taking information and then pushing it down in to community. 


One way to reach people with disabilities is take information that was not successful, in preparing 
people who had no significant barriers. Okay, help think people with money, no disabilities, 
they speak English, materials created for that group, we put them into a larger font. 
Or translate them. And then expect miracles. 


Not going to happen. Has anyone noticed that is our pattern, we have done it over and over. 
Part of what we have learned at CARD is that agencies, particularly those serving all, already 
marginalized communities have no desire to be knee-deep in a conversation and they don’t 
have money. Even the process of trying to bring everyone together is exclusionary of more 
than 95 percent of agencies. 


So what we keep doing is only touching the tip of the iceberg, putting a fingertip on the tip 
of the iceberg. But it is not the tip of the iceberg that sunk the Titanic. It was all the stuff you 
could not see. In truth we can make it an empowered conversation, we go back to random 
acts of preparedness and senseless acts of preparing, and hoping that everyone will develop 
a love affair with their binder. Not going to happen. 


Another thing that I want to put out. We have to stop using the phrase “lessons learned.“ 
How many have heard of the phrase, the lessons learned from the earth quake? That is 
lessons implemented. We learn lots of lessons all the time. Lessons implemented makes all 
the difference. 


 



I want to see implementation of it, and I tell you when we work with community organizations 
like you, it is shocking to see the degree to which they are advocating for things that 
never worked because they have never been educated about what does work. 


Our pattern after disasters is to have groups sue the Red Cross or the government and being 
really angry. Has that worked? Has that worked at all? You know it gets a compliance level 
of change. And a compliance level is nowhere near that level of embracing that as a way 
to work together and make it really work for us. The idea of preparing your community to 
prosper is going to be based not on successfully suing Red Cross or government, it is shifting 
the paradigm and helping organizations like you to advocate for the things that really work. 


And some of those things are instead of beating up on government and beating on Red 
Cross and beating up on everything that is not making it happen, it is advocating for a shift 
in how we do things. I tell people all the time, earthquakes don’t kill people. Earthquakes 
create collapses that kill people. Collapse of your house, or I have a pipe rupture, that kills 
people. 
In the same vein, disasters don’t cause victims, the policies cause victims. If you look at how 
often we just take it as totally acceptable that people in wheelchairs should be push in the to 
stairwells, that is a policy decision. 


You can have a policy that every single floor has an evacuation chair. It is clear that it is not 
disaster but that is policies that give us the world we are living in. And truth, we have all 
become policy victims, we keep doing that same thing inside that distinction of “this is the 
way it happens “. 


And I would tell you that there are easier ways to make preparedness happen. I want to show 
you a couple. How many of you have --the agencies that currently work with are you familiar 
with command system. Raise your hands high. Note how few hands are going up. 
The command system is one of the greatest things for agencies to learn, it allows you to you 
work in partnership with government and doesn’t have to be the big thick ugly binder. 


When we work with agencies we work with a system. It looks like… I would tell you that it 
does makes a difference, if you have to be in charge you can put the name tag around your 
neck and on the back it says, you are in charge. It walks you through as if you have a money 
manager saying the things you need to know. 
We have even put the incident command system inside a wallet card, if you are anywhere, 
and you had to stand up and respond you do that just with that. I want to ask you how many 
have ever, ever, put out a disaster brochure? You shared those brochures, and truth, how 
many people here actually did something with them? 
I have watched people literally invite people with disabilities to a meeting and take a bro

 



chure and stuff it down the pouch of the wheelchair and that was something they were able 


to check off as having served well people with disabilities. 


I would ask you as advocates to be the ones that don’t accept that, and to be the ones 
instead of fighting and suing to be advocates for the money to come directly to community 
agencies that serve people with disabilities, and make it so that community-based organizations 
are not just trying it fit in, but they are working in a way that works for them. 


And I would tell you that shifts the way you work together. What I hope for you is that you 
take on doing simple things. Like for of the rest of today, be the ones that are demanding 
for specific measurable results. Be the ones that are, okay what committee will we be on 
and make sure, let’s not re-invent the wheel and take successful practices and wait on them, 
so they work. And to, truly, truly look at that, not from the old model, of we are doing it for 
disasters. 


We can make this as Richard talked about the curb cut. We can make preparedness the thing 
that allows to us work together and in a way that every day we are people who care for each 
other. Preparedness can be that, we have allowed it to be the terrible thing we do because 
worse things will happen, as opposed to being the way we care for each other and secure 
our economy and make sure every voice in our community is heard. Truly it can be done and 
the greatest voices will be yours. 
I want to thank you, and particularly PG&E because of all the corporations that we have 
worked with, they are the ones that have championed the card model and allowed us to 
spread our wings, thank you very much. 
Teresa Favuzzi: We asked Ana Marie to think so you would have something to talk about 
over lunch. Lunch is served outside, buffet style, if you have not set down at a table you will 
soon. We encourage you to get air, it will crisp you up and we will be back in here to recognize 
our sponsors, at 12:45. Please be here for that program part. Thank you. 


 



Evacuation 1:15 - 2:00 

Speakers: Mike Collins, Executive Director, State Independent Living Council 

Fran Bates, Executive Director, Rolling Start Inc. 
Jerry Davis, Executive Director, Easy Lift Transportation 

(program begins--No record of introductory statements) 


Mike Collins, Executive Director, State Independent Living Council: They have been 
lacking in other disasters. The transit agencies need to play a key role in statewide and local 
transportation plans for evacuations. That has not happened in the all the counties, in San 
Diego county it is non-existent and on Sunday when the fires started, I don’t believe there 
are there were any vans available. Most of the areas hit by the fires were outside of the fixed 
route transit. So there was no public transportation available. 


You have heard of problems of notification and believe me they were rampant in southern 
California those two weeks, those were long running fires. Things we heard that were successful 
were transit agencies were prepared and persistent. We had what we call fire zones 
where they keep people out of during a fire but once it started up a certain canyon they 
block it off so people don’t go in. 


Unfortunately what happens when people are still living in homes that are isolated in the 
mountains or high valley and no one can get in to rescue them. In San Bernardino, we had a 
para-transit company, that rural transportation association, Mountain Area Transit Authority, 
and fortunately Jerry was in charge and knew the aim of the agency. They are ready and they 
had to argue with deputy and others who to get passage through blocked the fire routes. 
Many paratransit drivers on duty knew people depending on the paratransit were located on 
the rural roads and isolated valleys and we were persistent to get back in and determine if 
they needed a ride and help them get out. 


When people evacuate you cannot put 12 people with disabilities in a van, you might get 
two people, five or six dogs, the family photos and maybe an afghan they don’t want to leave 
behind, but not 12 people, and you are going to have to make multiple trips. 


We found also that people that needed to be evacuated may have known about the disaster 
and also may have had no other means of transportation except public transit. And if it had 
not shown up they would have been stranded in worse situations than they found themselves 
in. 


We had a situation where in Katrina and other places, especially San Bernardino where you 


 



had entire areas set up so a highway coming out could be turned into a one lane road, two 
lines for people to evacuate. However those responsible for implementing those plans didn’t 
do that, they stayed one lane and people who are evacuating or trapped in traffic for multiple 
hours and could see that the emergency vehicles were coming up it watch the fires 
burning toward the road and wonder would if they will be evacuated safely. 


We need to put these plans in place, if the person who develops the plan is not on duty at 
the time of the fire, or other disasters strikes, will those plans be put in place? 


I think that one of the other lessons we learned is that we needed to have training for paratransit 
drivers so the law enforcement agencies that are responsible for safety would feel 
more comfortable about having the driver enter the emergency zones with or without passengers 
and evacuate them safely. No one wants to see a vehicle with people dependent on 
the transportation burned up in a fire or otherwise damaged. I am going to, I think that the 
story needs to be shared with all three of us and my time is up, but I want to turn it over to 
Fran to talk about some of the consumers they dealt with and stories they told. 


Fran Bates, Executive Director, Rolling Start Inc.: Rolling Start for many years has been 
involved with trying to set up an master plan for people with disabilities. However we were 
not able it get off the ground with most of those thing, not basically due to us but it was like, 
it would start and then fall apart. That seems to be the way things went. But with our consumers, 
we had all sorts of stories to tell. 


We had one individual who was deaf, who was right up at the base of the fire, by Cal State 
and she had a hearing dog, of course the helicopters were flying over and of course they had 
the loud speakers going off, evacuate the area. But this lady the only way she knew was her 
dog came and warned her and she looked out, and the fire was on the perimeter of her yard. 


We had an apartment complex that set directly in front of -- directly in front of Cal State, 
which is where the fire came down and the out buildings of campus were burned. 
There was a large apartment complex where many of the students with disabilities lived, 
and, there was no coordinating effort among the management of the complex to even assist 
any of the people with disabilities in there. This is a real issue when it comes to coordination 
of evacuation procedures in large apartment complexes. 


We had many people that were evacuated without durable medical equipment. And that 
was something that was, there was uncoordinated effort, here Rolling Start is setting with a 
whole basement full of durable medical equipment, a lot of things could have been used at 
evacuation sites. 


The fire started early Saturday morning and not until Monday morning we got a call from the 
Red Cross wanting to know if we had if resources for durable medical equipment. Had we 


 



been a partner in that whole thing, we could have gotten equipment to them as soon as the 
people reached the evacuation center. 


And people were carried to the rest rooms because they were not accessible. 
People had to fight in some situation to take companion dogs with them and when they 
went to the shelters they were told their guide dogs could not stay in the shelter with them, 
there was a lot of disability sensitivity that needs to take place, that was not in place. 
Medications were another issue, we had individuals who had no medications and went 
without their medications as long as two days. We had one man that was in the shelter for 
three days, and when the people were checked in to the shelter, they some how missed the 
mark on this particular person, they had tv’s in the shelter but their captioning on the tv it 
had capability, but no one bothered to turn it on. 


And, there was a man in there who was deaf that had not a clue of what was going on. He 
had been separated from his two roommates that lived in the mountain areas and had 
no way of knowing what was going on until an interpreter was brought in to assist him in 
communication. 


The stories you know go on an on, and, it got to the point where, within the shelter itself, 
they had - - they kept saying the same old thing, we were not prepared for all these people 
with special needs. So, they got a church involved that was semi-accessible and took many of 
the individuals to a church area that was a little more accessible. 


But, one of the first things that I would say is, in the county of San Bernardino a total lack of 
coordination, when it came to notification, evacuation, the whole procedure. As a result, 
many people were at risk that may not have needed to be had there been planning ahead of 
time. 


Mike Collins: Thank you, Fran. 
I didn’t mention it enough but leaving the durable medical equipment behind was probably 
the most visible thing that I saw in Katrina. They multiplied it by having everyone in the 
Superdome and then loading them on buses and leaving those lined up wheel chairs in the 
parking lot. 
We heard from the friends that run the center for ILC in Houston, another organization that is 
served by shelters where they were taken, if they had mobility equipment meant they could 
have gotten them out almost immediately. Instead they were trapped in there and they 
experienced up in nursing home and psychiatric institutions, a lot of inappropriate places. 
I would like to turn it over to Jerry Davis, I didn’t know him until after the disaster but he 
came to our hearing and we heard the full story of what they did with MARTA to get in and 
make an extra effort to continue to get in and help people. And Jerry, thank you for what you 


 0 



did and would you share about why you were prepared and how you are even better prepared 
now. 


Jerry Davis, Executive Director, Easy Lift Transportation: I am the director - - however 
from 2002 through 2006, I was the General Manager of Mountain Area Regional Transit 
Authority. In the mountains during that four year stint, I went through the fires in 2003. And 
then the floods in 2005. And then the snows in 2005 and 2006. So we have been through a 
lot of disasters on the mountains. 


Fortunately, when I arrived in 2002, there was an agency that was formed by the local law 
enforcement fire departments called Mountain Mutual Aid. We are an association of first 
responders, transit providers, utility cops and other organizations within the communities to 
prepare for a fire which we knew was inevitable. 


Fortunately we had 12 months to plan before the fire broke out in 2003. 


We plan the best we could, not everything worked, a lot of thing didn’t work and that is why 
I am here to tell you what does and doesn’t work. But the main thing is that you have to 
prepare and you have to prepare for every kind of disaster; fire, snow, earthquake. 
Coordination is probably the key, you have to coordinate with law enforcement, fire department, 
and with Caltrans and with public works, and you have to coordinate with utility. 
These are all important things that have to happen, when the disaster takes place. 


There are certain critical issues that you must be prepared for during the first 36 hours. The 
first thing, how do you get your people in and out. At MARTA we had a system that didn’t 
work. We had little ID cards and they were supposed to show them to law enforcement to 
get through the roadblocks. 
When you bring in California highway patrol from northern California and central California 
manning roadblocks at the base of the mountain and they have been told it is a “hard lock,” 
no one gets through but emergency personnel. A paratransit is not emergency personnel 
according to them. 


We would send our drivers off the mountain with people on board, drop at the shelters, and 
turn around and bring them back up to bring another load and they could not get through. 
Fortunately they called us on the cell phone and we had the sheriff’s department and they 
got information to the highway patrol to let us through. 


Through the second day we had that resolved, and we were given access up and down the 
mountain. But it is not during the first day. We evacuated people for three and four days after 
the fire started, we were finding people still in their homes and getting them out, I don’t do it 
during two or three hours, it takes did I to get everyone out. 


 1 



You have to have food, and sleeping quarters for operators and communications. And probably 
the biggest mistake was I disappeared for the first 72 hour and my wife didn’t know 
where I was, I got in big trouble for that. When I finally showed up at home, I got yelled 
at for two hours because she didn’t know if I was alive or what was going on. Be sure that 
your people, if you are involved, communicate with their families because you will be in big 
trouble when you get home. 
The other issue, what do you do about your family? If you are involved in the evacuation you 
have to take care of your family first because if you don’t know where they are or feel they 
are in harm’s way you won’t be able concentrate on your job. And if you cannot concentrate 
you are going to make a mistake. 


Pre-plan to get your family to safety, I sent my family off the mountain. I said pack up and 
take the cats and go. I’ll see in a couple weeks. And the other thing, the cats, you show up at 
someone’s door, and say, it is time to go. The fire is cresting the mountain, they are not going 
it leave without Fluffy or Fido, I guarantee they will not leave pets behind. Transit’s normal 
response is, no, we don’t transport household pets unless they were in a carrier. Well, you 
have to forget the rules, and you have to transport them. 


The other issue, when you get them to the shelters there is no facility for the pets, and therefore, 
they cannot go in to the shelters. They are sitting outside in the parking lot with their 
pets. So that needs to be taken care of and planned for in advance. 


And probably one of the big things that we forgot to do, is we evacuated the crestline area 
first, three days later after evacuating most the people up there to Big Bear, we had to evacuate 
Big Bear. That was also a problem, we had to evacuation people twice and then down 
to the valley and they had to evacuate from there also into Victorville because the fire went 
over the mountain. 


You need to think about where you put people. But what we forgot to do, how to get them 
home. We had everything planned out and everything written down, to get them off the 
mountain, we never thought of bringing them back home. If you take them off, you have to 
bring them back. 


Two weeks later we - - it was reopened for re-entry, I got I phone call, saying, when are you 
going to come get us. When do you mean, who are? 


And what happened was they had been moved three times, and we didn’t know where they 
were. 
I mean we had sent them to the shelters to bring people back but they had been moved to 
a hotel. And we had no idea where they were, until they called, they were just happy in the 
hotel waiting to hear from me and wondering when I was going to bring them home. So you 


 



have to plan for bringing people back and plan for tracking people. There is nothing worse 
than getting a call from a family member in Seattle, their grandmother was evacuated and 
you have to list of where you took them. You have to make a list when they board the bus to 
go down. 


Rural transit is probably the most prepared for disasters. Urban transit is not, and they need 
to be. 
You will find urban transit is in every emergency evacuation plan, for every city, and every 
county, but if you go to the transit agency and say, what is your role in disaster they will say, 
I don’t know. They are in the plan, they were been written in but there is no communication 
from the first responders to transit agencies on the needs. 
They have not bothered to involve them in the planning process, or bothered to tell them 
what is required of them in disaster situations. It is getting better but it is still a problem. 
Transit needs to force themselves to the table. It has to be done. Another thing that you 
have to plan for, when you take three hundred people off the mountain in vehicles, and you 
go down to pick them up, the generosity of the community creates an issue. They have so 
many goodies that have been given to them in the shelters you have to plan to bring the 
goodies back with them because they are not going to leave them behind. We probably sent 
one bus full of people, and two buses for the goodies, to get people back up the mountain. 
So make sure there is plan to bring the excess baggage home. That is pretty much what I’ve 
got. 


Speaker: I want to summarize what happens from a non-transit view. When I was in San 
Diego the only notification that was consistent was the radio. Television was more interested 
in showing the football game in Cleveland, but on the radio, that was the news. 
But the problem was that the public service agencies were not getting on the radio to tell 
people what to do, you could hear about the fires and people called in talking about being 
evacuated or a community on fire or fire in the mountains all around me, what should I do. 
But no one came in and said, you should go. 
I ended up by circumstance in an alpine area, east of town, blocked from returning to the 
city by fires. I was evacuated with a mass of vehicles and individuals who had no idea where 
there were going and we followed each other like lemmings, and they diverted us off the 
highway and you rolled down the window and say where do I go, follow that car. Whoever 
was in the lead didn’t know because we ended up with them saying follow that car. 


Shelter areas were evacuated three times during the night because fires moved. People 
are evacuated and you can not track that. These were individuals traveling with their 
vehicles, dragging motor homes because they just got back from the desert. It was a mess. 
The notification is haphazard, roads are clogged and the system itself is not designed to 


 



accommodate. 


I want to focus on three of our recommendations that have come out of the report. One, the 
transit agencies need to be included in the planning, not told about what the plan is after 
the fact. 
The paratransit vehicles should be treated as emergency vehicles and set up for the drivers 
to be trained on how to operate appropriately during emergencies. 
Most importantly, one thing that we advocate is that transit providers should be reimbursed 
for their costs. Jerry’s agency had overtime and for a while it doesn’t seem like he was getting 
repaid, but you did? Thanks to a sheriff who pushed that point. 
A paratransit rider list that is available for every agency should be made available to first 
responders and emergency personnel, fire and law enforcement so that they will know that 
is where an individual lives that is transit dependent. 
Finally, the dispatcher should contact people with disabilities who are normal riders to make 
sure they have means to evacuate in emergencies. 


These are a few agencies that operate in most communities around the clock. Several 
not around the clock, around the week, they are opened on Sunday, unlike other public 
agencies. 
We have time for questions. Any questions for the panel? 


Speaker: Herb and then - - more? 


Speaker: So this is mostly to you Mike, and Fran, in some ways you are repeating the stories 
that have been told for a decade, I think Ana Marie said that. It seems like often when there 
is a mandate, we are mandated to be included at the table which just means that we get 
listened to and then ignored, instead of not listened to in the first place. As a solution, what 
kind of state-level action, administrative or legislative, would change that? 


Mike Collins: I think the first step, well not the first step because several of us have been 
involved in the state level for months or years, and I think you heard from Grace yesterday 
that she gets it, but, or this morning, it seems like yesterday. It really is important that we 
continue to be at that table and you also heard that the planning needs to take place locally. 
I think that is one gap that is really still happening around the state. 


I don’t think that local individuals and agencies that could play a strong role in planning as it 
required by the Americans with Disabilities Act, as you know every government agency must 
have a program available or accessible to people with disabilities and they must be viewed 


 



included. 


If you are planning for something as important as emergency response, and you don’t have 
people at that table you are in violation of law, but more importantly you are doing the community 
a disfavor. 


I think the legislation, and the California Council of the Blind introduced, to put the disability 
guru has been expanded to the point now if we had someone on every committee in the 
state level, that I think we will begin to get those consistent inroads and get policy developed 
that will serve everyone, eventually. 


Speaker: I have a question, about pets that are with the disabilities communities people. 
What is the real life experience as far as who and what will be transported if you are evacuating 
a disabled person? Do you allow the pet on? Like he said, the rule was against it, but did 
you do it any way? 


Jerry Davis: We did it any way at that time. Service animals have always been allowed. In 
the San Bernardino mountains pets will always be allowed in a disaster, we learned that 
lesson. 


Now I am working in Santa Barbara and I am not invited to the table. I have only been there 
60 days so I have not had a chance to scream and beat my fist on the table to get invited, but 
I am the ADA paratransit and I guarantee I will be at the table, but it will take time. San Bernardino 
is great. Up in the mountains we are rural transit and we are the ADA providers so 
we are at the table, but that is unusual. Very unusual. 


Mike Collins: Talk to Jo Black, she’ll get you in. She will get you. Jo Black is our ILC director 
down there, and she is also on the independent living council, she knows everyone. And 
back in the back, another question. 


Speaker: First of all, I’ll like to say, the first statement and this one. You said you were going 
to be at that, you are going to be there. My question, that is for Santa Barbara county, right, 
what about the rest of the counties? How do you get everyone else to beat the drum or 
whatever, until they are there, that is my first question. 


And even though you are breaking the rules for the animals, what about the other counties 
in terms of breaking the similar rules, because if I live in the one county and heard that I can 
take my animal and I moved and they said sorry we don’t do animals. 


I guess that takes me to the initial point, the language, when I live in the river side, as ILC 
we were invited to participate because the Red Cross was asking to us give them feedback 
observe people with disability and we had meetings. Next thing we knew, the man that was 
heading that up was no longer there. 


 



The link was dropped and then next thing we hear that regional sector people have been 
doing meetings regularly with other stakeholders, and so my concern is that as people leave 
so does the link, and we are re-inventing the wheel again. 


So there has to be some way to keep the links, it is exactly that, and keep all the same players 
because if we have to do this every time someone moves it is going to be like forever step 
forward we take two steps back. 


Speaker: The key is that the community needs to get a hold of the executive director or 
whoever is in charge of paratransit operations for your local area, and beat on their door, and 
say, you need to be involved. You need to be at the table. 


They have the equipment and expertise, they have the database of the people who need to 
be moved in a disaster situation. Ten percent of southern Santa Barbara county’s population 
is one of my clients. 10 percent. And therefore 10 percent of population will depend on me 
to move them out, and it is growing every day. And it is not going to shrink, because we are 
all getting older. Unfortunately. 


But you know, you have - - the local organizations, ILCs and senior organizations and all 
these other organizations need to get a hold of the paratransit provider and say, you need to 
do something, and you need to be prepared. Are you prepared, what is going to happen in a 
disaster, are you going to come get us, how? Are you going to notify us if there is an evacuation? 
They are the ones that have the information and expertise. The will to do it. 


Because, if I didn’t do it, in the mountains, they would have transported them one at a time in 
the sheriff’s unit. Law enforcement doesn’t have the manpower for that or expertise because 
they would have picked you up and thrown you in the front seat and took you off and 
dumped you in the shelters, And the pets would have been left behind because they carry 
guns and you would have not argued with them, but you will argue with a transit driver. Law 
enforcement carries guns. Did that answer your question? 


Speaker: Fluffy with a gun, look out. 


Ana Maria Jones: I want to comment that I have limited faith in certain planning processes. 
The whole idea of people at the table is great, and I understand the need to weigh 
in, but if we leave it there it will be exactly like Herb said, you will be at the table, but no plan 
implemented. 


If you want to get the piece changed and really be a life in the community it requires community-
based organizations following up and taking that process and bringing it back and 
putting in its newsletters and keeping it on peoples’ agendas. If you leave it at the level of 
“that is happening at committee level “, it is not going to change. 


 



And understand one thing about the way people report back. People report on successes. 
McDonald’s doesn’t go out and say we didn’t serve any pizzas today, they talk about what 
they do do. You have to be the ones to ask the hard questions and have these bullet points. 


Because truly we have for years –years-- listened to the planning committees come back 
with a report and nothing is moved forward. Truly it is up to us to see it move ever forward 
and when staff turns over we have to keep it moving, or it will die, it has died several times 
over the last 35 years. 


Mike Collins: We have one question - - but actually I think I’d like to respond, the best way to 
get yourselves at the table or make sure the planners are looking out for you are to be in the 
face of county supervisors and city council . If they know you are there and keep harassing 
them until they change their policies you will see changes occur, that holds true for anything. 
That is what ILC’s can do, because they are advocates out there to lead that charge. And we 
have two questions now. 


Speaker: Thanks Mike. Jerry, I think you are in the minority in that you are a businessman 
who actually does the right thing for perhaps before looking at business being number one 
priority. I think, to me the elephant in the room as we talk about is yes, community-based 
organizations need to be doing as much as they can, to advocate. That is how we change 
peoples’ mind and behaviors, and that is one reason we are here. 


But also the fact is that people do things or -- agencies do things because it either makes 
good business sense or they are mandated. And, what we fail to see over the 40 plus years, is 
since the 1960’s, that were mentioned, is that we still don’t have legislation directing to us do 
certain things. We can have all kinds of presidential directives or initiatives, and we can have 
all kinds of guidelines; we have heard about all four of those this morning. 


But we don’t have any coordinated effort legislatively and from the government that says 
this is a priority. And we are not going to see changes in the communication system or 
changes in the transportation for evacuation, we are not going to see the paratransit and the 
public transit officials at the table, until we have the directives that say this has to be mandated, 
not just this is the right thing to do. I think one thing that I am hoping to see at the 
end of this is what can we do collaboratively to get to the point where this is a requirement. 
That we do together as community. 


Speaker: That was a long non-question but thank you, that was very good comment. 
Dwight, we have two minutes left. I want to keep this on time. 
Dahlia and then Angela. 


Speaker: I want to comment on the fact that I think there is a lot of progress and there has 
been in the last nine months here in California. A delegation that went to Washington DC is 
really aware of all the situations that need to be corrected, and improved. So, I would hope 


 



that this group is not as pessimistic as most of the comments have been. 


Mike Collins: Pragmatic. I do believe that there has been a mandate to co-locate animal 
shelters with people shelters now, I am still waiting for the document but I believe that is 
out there now as a requirement. And also, for emergency notification systems the national 
emergency member association or NLNA that deals with all 911 issues, they were working 
on those documents of accessibility issues for both video relay, IP relay, and also emergency 
warning systems for people with disabilities. 


Look them up online, this is the accessibility issues committee, I am sure that he would love 
to have other people involved. National Emergency Number Association (NENA) www.nena. 
org, Did you get that? 


Dwight, do you have anything? 


Speaker: As soon as I can turn the mike on. I want to support Sherry in what she said. Stan-
islaus County was hit with a flood, spill way, nothing has changed in my community. I had 
the fire marshal and county CEO office talking, 7 years later they are just now talking. They 
don’t know what to do with the local level and as until we died, that we want legislation to 
go through that will force the representative to talk and come up with the plans that we 
need. It will channel up and down or we will be back here in 10 years having the same discussion 
we are having right now. 


Dan and Laura. Hang on a second. 


Speaker: Hang on Dan. 
Is this one. Just a quick question, when you say the animal shelters will be co-located with 
the regular emergency shelters, is that for pets? Or – 


Speaker: Yes, not just service animals. 


Speaker: Right, service animals need to stay with the owner, thank you. 


Speaker: Dan? 


Speaker: I want to say that our legislation SB1451. I want to urge everyone to watch out for 
the packets that we’re just working on now, that are going to be for the consumer advocates 
from all the disabilities groups and subcommittees to be selected, that you look around 
now for people in your community to -- for qualified consumers who have knowledge about 
issues that we have talked about today to start populating the SEMS committees. 


Once all that - - I think all that different groups will be represented and once all those committees 
are populated then all the disabled members of SEMS will elect a representative 


 



to represent them on that work group executive, big committee that is the - - where all the 


leaders are on. 


So, watch out for your packet, Richard and myself, and other members, Mike Collins will be 
able to filter those packets to you and they are coming out and I can’t forget, Grace Koch will 
have those documents as well. Mike, is that it? 


Speaker: One more and then we will end there. 


Speaker: Thank you, I would like to remind everyone that California already has a state code 
that requires every single program, service or facility that receives state funds to be usable 
and accessible to persons with disabilities. So if you have an evacuation plan that doesn’t 
include you or doesn’t have you as part of the plan, they are in violation. 


That state code also said that based on compliance that state funds will be withheld from 
that agency. We already have that law, let’s have advocates use that against your local entities, 
if they don’t listen or include us. 


I don’t know the number offhand, I can email it tonight to you, and you can send that state 
code out to everyone, it already exists in state law and it is a very powerful tool. Because 
every single one of the agencies that does this planning receives state funding, so I encourage 
people to use the laws we already do have. Thank you very much. 


Mike Collins: I have it on my computer, thank you all of you, and here’s the next panel. 


 



Sheltering 2:00 - 2:45 

Speakers: Greg John, Manager, Emergency Management Relations Pacific Service Area, 
American Red Cross 

Bill Vogel, Chief, Disaster Services Bureau, Department of Social Services 

Norma Vescovo, Executive Director, Independent Living Center of Southern 
California 

Teresa Favuzzi: Okay, the next three panel discuss issues relating to shelter, it is 10 minutes 
each, again, and fifteen minute question and answer. 


And we will take a break then and each one of tables --in your packet you got questions and 
we will go to table discussion then, and start to talk about inclusion solutions, and we will 
ask to you present the solutions from each table, so that we can begin to figure out what are 
our next steps. 


So, I would like to introduce Greg John, Manager of Emergency Management Relations with 
American Red Cross. 


Bill Vogel, Chief of Disaster Services, Bureau of the Department of Social Service. And Norma 
Vescovo, Executive Director of ILC of Southern California. Bill is at the end of the table, Greg is 
in the middle, and Norma is on the end. Norma has a Powerpoint and we will have her go last 
so the gentlemen can move away from the table and screen. So Bill, did you want to start? 


Bill Vogel, Chief, Disaster Services Bureau, Department of Social Services: Is this the 
good mike? 


Teresa Favuzzi: Let me give you this one. 
June has batteries. 


Bill Vogel: Okay, I am the branch chief, and CDS has lead responsibility for mass shelter in 
the California emergency plan. Details, specific responsibilities that CDS has are contained 
in the document called-- administrative order. All that, that order doesn’t specify preparing 
and responding to the shelter needs of people with disabilities. My department considers all 
people being included in the responsibilities for shelters. 


In the administrative staff order, the responsibilities are as follows as state leader or to work 
cooperative and coordination with OES to develop plans and procedures for shelter. Secondly, 
as well as coordinate all resources, in - - - - coordinate - - plans and procedures for 
mass care and shelter. 


 0 



To cut through the bureaucracy and government speak, what does that mean in real terms? 
It means that we need to be ready to shelter disaster victims, any place, at any time. Fortunately 
in most circumstances we have local governments who partner with Red Cross to 
perform this duty. American Red Cross, without expectation, does that voluntarily. 


In the event that local resources are overwhelmed, and Red Cross cannot meet the responsibility, 
social service needs to be ready to step in. CSS is not open to state shelter and yet 
we need to do this during the dire evident circumstances where local government and Red 
Cross are overwhelmed. 


After Katrina the need to prepare for the shelter of large numbers of people, larger than 
anyone imagined, became more important. Leading, meeting the special needs of people 
with disabilities was also an issue that stood out. The department of social service began to 
take steps to prepare as state lead for sheltering people with disabilities. 


Among the things that we have done, or are still in the process are - - people with disabilities 
and elderly mass care and shelter preparedness committee, that is designed to develop 
a state level plan for sheltering people with disabilities and the elderly. Representatives of 
the Department of Rehab, developmental services, alcohol and drug program, state ILC and 
Red Cross, and others are on that committee. A working plan to coordinate state resources to 
shelter people with disabilities is expected to come out in March 2007. 


Second thing, last month the health and human services agency disaster coordinating 
formed a committee on the mass care and shelter to coordinate resources of departments 
located within Health and Human Services. And in August of this year the California Department 
of Social Services conducted a table-top exercise with the Department of Veteran 
Affairs, and Department of Rehabilitation. The exercise simulated sheltering and caring 
people with disabilities and elderly. 


We are beginning to plan efforts with FEMA on how to access federal assets to support mass 
care and shelter operations during events. It included developing of concept operation 
between the two entities. A portion of concept of operation addresses sheltering people 
with disabilities. San Francisco county, OES, and other departments are working to develop a 
Bay Area regional mass care and shelter plan. That plan has a - - completion of plan is scheduled 
for January 2007. 


Despite planning that has gone on, there are major issues in policy at state levels. I see most 
critical issues cloud, there is no specific regulation, statute, or requirement that assigns 
responsibility for local government to shelter its populations. There is no specific regulation, 
requirement or assigned responsibility to shelter populations of people with disabilities. 


It did an informal poll of several counties in the state to see what sheltering for people with 
disabilities planning has occurred. Only one county out of 10 has any plans for sheltering 


 1 



people with disabilities. 


Three, presently there is no system for mutual aid among people-care departments’ emergency 
response like there is for fire and law. The creation of a system like this would increase 
the ability to respond to disasters. 


Overall responsibility for medical sheltering is not assigned to any department in the department 
of emergency planning. There is confusion about sheltering people with disabilities 
versus medical shelter. Major issues and gaps that include lack of cache of durable medical 
equipment. Hospital beds and others that would be needed. 


Lack of cache of medication needed to stabilize individuals to allow them to stay in regular 
shelters and not medical shelters. And prior vendor resources into state and local emergency 
plans. Evacuation coordinated with statewide mass care and shelter plans. 


Katrina was terrible, however all the tragedy that was caused has helped shed light on the 
gaps in sheltering that needs to be done. Although we have accomplished much there is 
much more to do, we should not let the importance of being ready for the next event to fade 
as time passes. 


Greg John, Manager, Emergency Management Relations Pacific Service Area, American 
Red Cross: Is this on? 


I am Greg John, the emergency management relations working for the passive, if I can, 
service area in Sacramento. I have had experience for 35 years with the Red Cross, working 
from Ohio to Florida and Philadelphia to San Diego, and I applaud the fact that this meeting 
is occurring because there is nowhere in this country in the last thirty-five years that this 
issue has been solved. 


First of all, all members of community includes disabled should prepare themselves for possible 
and probable local disasters --earth quakes, floods, fires-- with appropriate supplies of 
water, food and including food for service animals. Medicine, list of doctors, etc, so that they 
can receive rapid assistance at whatever location they end up. 


The Red Cross has been, provided services for victims of disaster since January 1905, when 
an act of congress created the Red Cross to provide services. That is one of the first nonfunded 
mandates of our government. And we are the only non-governmental organization 
that is required to perform disaster relief activities. This includes sheltering and feeding after 
disasters, not saying that Red Cross is the only organization that does it but it is mandated 
and not something that we can not do. Whether or not it is a disaster like Katrina or the 2003 
wildfires that have been mentioned here in California. 


Just a point of information, the American Red Cross doesn’t own the facilities that it uses 


 



for shelters. So the term “Red Cross shelters” implies and many people believe they are 
Red Cross owned but they are not. They are facilities that are found throughout communities 
and we try to use community buildings like schools or centers recreation or vacant 
office space, places that are already ADA compliant and have been surveyed for their use 
after disasters. However if it is a large earthquake or other disaster, these facilities may be 
destroyed or made unusable. 


So what occurs in the real world is, surveyed buildings are reviewed for their acceptability 
and we attempt to find the building that meets most of the requirements that make it as 
possible for ADA compliance as we can make it. And I would like to read a statement. 


“The American Red Cross disaster services values and promotes diversity and inclusiveness 
among paid and volunteer staff, and recognizes its obligation to ensure to the 
degree possible that all individuals have access to the goods and services provided as 
part of disaster services program.” 


While it is true that shelter populations usually consist of individuals who are self-sufficient 
and need little assistance or care, some clients may require accommodations like limited 
assistance or other modifications. 
The question is, who can be admitted to an American Red Cross shelter? 


I am going to have guidelines, unfortunately this is not a black or white issue and there 
are going to be interpretations by local communities and shelter managers, and people 
themselves. 


But persons in wheel chairs, who are capable of transferring themselves. 
Persons with controlled psychiatric illnesses are available to be in a shelter. 
Persons with mild to moderate muscular diseases with a stable gait. 
Persons with special diets. 
Persons with artificial limbs. 
Persons with mechanical devices like pacemakers and insulin pumps. 
Persons with visual, speech and hearing impairments. 
Persons with managed non-acute mental health illnesses. 
And the elderly. 


Red Cross manages Red Cross shelters, however there are other shelters that occur throughout 
an effective disaster area. The Red Cross doesn’t have a monopoly on that. There are 
generally accepted four categories. One is a shelter managed by Red Cross, controlled and 
operated. Another, assisted with a partner agency. Third, supported, where the Red Cross 
may drop off food, and management of the facility or shelter is by the facility owners, for 
example, abc church. Fourth, non-affiliated, non-Red Cross shelters. These are four types of 
shelters that you will see. 


 



The second category is a medical shelter. These serve individuals who have needs for additional 
assistance beyond what Red Cross can provide and we don’t manage these. Typically 
medical shelters are managed by local health departments of the affected county. But that 
is not a guarantee, you have to work with your local communities to find out who is responsible 
for them. 


And the question is, who goes in to medical shelters? These would include special bed and 
or special toileting arraignments, life support equipment, significant supportive nursing 
care, for example, kidney dialysis. Conditions that require care, monitoring or support that 
the individual cannot manage for themselves. Skilled care due to surgery or medicating cal 
treatment. Limited ability, for example they cannot sleep on a cot and just a point of information, 
cots are not available in every shelter, the first night necessarily because it does take 
time to move it in. And any requirement of special equipment normally found in hospitals. 


In short, a very rough gray area definition would be for those people that don’t need the 
medical facility of a hospital, its care, trained attendant and nurses or doctors --they can go 
in to Red Cross shelters. The health of a community is the responsibility of local public health, 
again I urge you to check in your local communities. And people with disabilities should not 
automatically be referred to a medical shelter. Part of this is complicated a bit by the fact that 
we don’t have a common vocabulary. 


The term “special needs” means everything and therefore nothing. If I asked you in this room, 
who --to define special needs, I would get 50 different definitions. Right now the federal 
government is attempting to come up with some definition so this can be a meaningful 
term, and I have understand that that will come out in winter or early next year. I think this 
is a good starting point for to us work from. The question is what kind of shelter barriers are 
there for the disability community. 


As I listen to the evacuation panel, and the questions and answers, there is legislation, not 
enough, but I believe that it goes beyond requirements. I believe that it is relationships that 
are built. No one entity has the ability to deal with these issues. If you use the acronym, 
TEAM, Together Emergencies Are Managed, I think we can proactively work together on 
these issues. 


We need to work on pre-surveyed compliant buildings ahead of time so we have a list of 
potential shelters. Are there ramps and curb cuts, thing like that. Possible solutions to 
these identified barriers, more meetings and summits like this. More get-togethers, it is 
relationships in my opinion that are going to solve this, not legislation. It is the ownership, 
assignment of responsibilities and accountability to, so people know they have a part in the 
process. And understanding and preparedness by individual and communities. Every individual, 
disabled or not, needs to take some part in the process of preparedness. I have a sign 
that says I should stop now, so if I have questions, please ask me later. 


 



Norma Vescovo, Executive Director, Independent Living Center of Southern California: 

Can you turn that out until I am ready? Maybe I need to move over. I would like to thank 
you very much for being here today for this issue, I also think I probably want to thank me 
because I am the last person on docket. 


We had and I am talking about the past and I am going to talk about experiences, and I am 
going to show you slides and I am going to make lots of recommendations to work with. 


We’ve had 20 years of recovery, just if you want to talk about since the East Bay earthquake 
in 1989 or Northridge in 1994, we have had floods and fires and we have seen just about 
everything. At some point or another we must have enough accountability and we have had 
enough experience. Now we have to take agency, and we now have to be responsible for 
what is happening in the future. 


I have served as executive director of ILC of Southern California for over 30 years, and I have 
seen just about everything. Our organization works to help people with, persons with disabilities 
to lead and hopefully achieve independence. Living independently and emergencies 
both require the coordinating knowledge, and resources. Let me tell you a story. 


You have heard lots of them today, but we also had stories in 1994. We had a man who was 
52 year old in a wheelchair that happened to be in his trailer at the time of the earthquake. 
The trailer collapsed and fell over, neighbors pulled him out and no one had transportation 
to take him this in a wheel chair, rather than getting left behind he went to a shelter down 
the street. 


When he got to a shelter, hoping for refuge, he found out it was not accessible. He was 
carried in and once he was in he was a prisoner. He could not use the bathroom because it 
was not accessible, or the shower because it was not accessible. Now that is, that can only 
last for a certain length of time, after three days he was not a comfortable person to live 
around. 


Therefore people in the shelter picked him up and took his clothes off and carried him nude 
into the shower, washed him off and gave him donated clean clothes. That was the treatment 
he received. I am not sure if you were talking about humanity or right of dignity, in this 
particular case, but let me tell you that the same story was repeated regularly. 


This man never needed an attendant or help, if you have something accessible. I am not sure 
what his classification under the new Red Cross consideration would be, but here a person 
doesn’t need an attendant, but needed one in this particular case, so you are putting a 
person into another level of concern. 


We had individuals that were hearing impaired, we had a man that-- at the time of the 
earthquake we had a Measles epidemic that required that the people at Red Cross asked 


 



everyone, have you had an infection or run a fever, do you have any pimples on you? 


And, when you asked the deaf person that, who didn’t have an interpreter so he could not 
answer it, and he was refused entry. When he left the shelter, he started to walk away and 
ran into another deaf person and said let me help you, he tried everything and could not get 
it. She brought him to the center and we had to get them into the shelter. They assumed 
that they were together and they are probably both infected. That was the type of thing that 
we had. I am going to go over the critical problems we had during that time that help you 
understand my recommendations. Critical medication was lost. 


Medi-cal could not replace this, because they had gotten it within the 30 day period. 


Computer systems for almost all of the chain pharmacies were gone. Independent pharmacies 
were the only ones able to help us. They were willing to give the person the medicine, 
the state was refusing to give them information as to what the medication was for that 
person and then we had a lot of trouble finding out what this American’s normal prescriptions 
were. But we were able to do that and they were replaced, but I don’t think they ever 
got paid back. 


Transportation issues developed. If a person had a hard time getting to the shelter but they 
could not go home and pick up mail or find out if their gas has been turned on or if the place 
was in a position they could move home, they are stuck at the shelters. The Red Cross volunteers 
took people home but if you were disabled, you were not taken home, because it was a 
liability. 


Personal attendants fled because of fear. They also fled because they had to take care of 
their own families, leaving this person obviously put them in to a shelter. 
At that time we offered to get people to go in and help, but the shelter wasn’t allowing that 
because of the liability. Water trucks were sent to the local areas. The high schools were not 
physically accessible, and in most cases, they were using hoses into large water bottles too 
heavy for people with disabilities. Assistive technology devices like power wheelchairs and 
scooters were unable to recharge. Gas was sometimes turned off unnecessarily. And then we 
had to wait for the gas company to come back out and turn it on. Interpreters were not available 
at any shelter. Service animals were denied regularly. Hearing aids, false teeth, canes, 
medicines, were the most commonly lost and broken. Most of the items took two or three 
years to replace, we had people without teeth for two and three years. 


Open, closed captioning was not even in place. Physically accessible telephones and tty at 
that time were not available in the shelters. The hotel rooms were commonly unavailable 
because we had so many FEMA people --volunteers from every which way-- all in the community 
and we didn’t have space. 


 



I am going to show you Powerpoint items that - - so you can see physically some of the 
things that I have just said. This first one, the public telephone of this particular bank of 
phones brought in, they are too high for someone in their chair. They have a bank that is low 
that can be brought in, and when they go through the book to order these things, they can 
order them. The lower bank of phones have tty’s on the end. But this was not ordered. Not 
that it was unavailable, it was not ordered. 


The space when you have to go in the lines to FEMA and other things to get food, the lines 
were never accessible. And this is another one of lines, the third one was also the lines. Its 
space was too narrow. Notice the lack of rest rooms that are accessible . They had a wash 
dash that was in all the different shelter. That center one, when I first walked up I had thought 
it was accessible, but it was just a different color; they didn’t have one that was accessible. 
And you can see in this rest room, there are no grab bars and it was too narrow, even if you 
go deal with the no grab bars it was too narrow. 


That particular one was available if 1994, way before that, but in 1994, after that earthquake 
this was available but it was not ordered. The next one, we found was available in 1999, 
And when we talked to that person, they said she doesn’t get enough orders because these 
places don’t order them and they don’t make that many of them. 


The shower you can see was not accessible. This was great for the places but it had steps, 
and the next picture you will see the end of the shower in which it was not accessible. 
Here’s the step to the rest room. Next one - - step to the rest room. 


I have got a lot more to go, I might go overtime. There is a large step entrance to the shower, 
that one, the rest room. The next one, the shower. 


The shower knobs are too high to be accessible. The next one is a accessible shower. That 
is available. The next one, shower seat, that is where they had the seat in the shower. And 
without any kind of shower you can add the hose and hole in order to make it more accessible, 
and those are available. 


Do I have more time? I don’t know who is here. There are a few recommendations that I want 
to make. 


First recommendation: What can do you for yourself? All of us need to be responsible to do 
things for yourselves. Part of that is making yourself safer, is making sure that you have lot of 
extra water on hand, keeping flashlights, the accessibility of a phone and all these things all 
of us are aware of. But keeping medicine out of medicine cabinets because they open and 
fall into the toilet or sink and you have no medicine. Dentures are always lost or broken that 
was a consistent problem. Always. 
Developing neighbors, friends, families, or other persons with disabilities, create a kind of 


 



family or group of people. And, I don’t want to you think that I am thinking that you can 
take care of everything if it is an emergency. You can not. You can only take care of a certain 
portion and then you have to depend on the system in which you work with, to do that. 


There should be one clear and concise book of instructions for emergency workers in shelters. 
Much of the time they have several books. One book serves the general public, the 
second book is something different. As I said earlier it is called “special needs “ to be covered. 
And these are the ones that tell you extra things. In the main book it says order 20 phones, 
and in the special book it tells you to order one special set of the phones. If it were all 
together you would have it all ordered at once. 


Independent agencies in the community that have experience should be able to come to 
the shelters and help. In the past you were not allowed to do that, especially with Red Cross 
because you have to have twelve or 14 hours of training before you can go in to the Red 
Cross shelter to help, and if you have not had that you can not go in and help. 


The individual pharmacist should have the right to get medicines, information from the 
state, and to help in writing prescriptions; that is very important that they are involved. 


Responsibility by the county. Temporary pay for personal assistants for persons with disabilities 
who have lost their assistants in the emergency, to work at homes and prevent 
them from having to go to a shelter. The county should send attendants to the shelters, find 
people that are disabled and assist them, and/or offer whatever help they can to them. And 
if it means they can move back home with that assistant, great; if they cannot, help them in 
the shelter. 


Ill deny the fact that that person should be able to be in this shelter with the client, and we 
are told last time through the Red Cross we were not allowed to do that, but an attendant 
should be in the shelter with the person. I have to stop. Thank you. 


Teresa Favuzzi: We have five minutes for questions for this panel, and then we go to a 15 
minute break. I see Richard, Ana Marie, Herb and Lori. 


Speaker: This is for Bill. I have a lot of respect for Bill. I work with him on committees, and 
he is a caring and sensitive person. I listed a number of things that were missing. Could 
you recommend one or two things that you would love to have the public advocate for to 
support you, what you are trying to do. 


Bill Vogel: Right now in the code of California regulations there is a requirement, might be 
health and safety code for local governments to care for citizen, it is very vague. I think if we 
can just modify the language in this code where it specifies more about sheltering of people, 
of citizens, I think that would just be a huge key because that in fact could give us leverage to 
go work with local governments, to try to help prepare them better for sheltering its popula

 



tion, and people specifically with disabilities. 


Richard Ruge: What would I say - - 


Bill Vogel: I can email you the specific code, and give you some suggested language. 


Richard Ruge: Great, thank you. 


Speaker: First I want to acknowledge, thank you for being just blunt and honest saying this 
issue has not been solved anywhere, because frankly just the level of honesty about why this 
is a problem everywhere is helpful. My question is, how do we find out and get more Red 
Crossers to acknowledge the limitations inside the Red Cross system? 


I worked with Red Cross for years and one thing that for example most people are not aware 
is that Red Cross is smaller now than it was. 3,800 chapters in 2000, now it is down to 800. 
We are talking this enormous drop in Red Cross capacity and size. Most people don’t know 
that and they keep doing that thing, the Red Cross will handle it well. 


I realize it is common to talk about your successes and what you can do, but for many groups 
it is critical for the Red Cross to acknowledge very specifically what they cannot do, because 
otherwise no one can feel that they can fill the gap. It is almost putting every nonprofit in 
direct competition with the Red Cross. Which you know is basically a futile experience. 


When you say the government says, give to the Red Cross and Red Cross is saying it can do 
something, it shifts the dynamic and doesn’t let others do what needs to be done. What is 
your recommendation as to how we can get that level of awareness and other Red Crossers 
to be honest about the lay of the land? 


Greg John: I’ll say the best thing is to actively participate. And that is on a local level, the 
county level, the state level, to actively participate. The urban legend that the - - no disrespect, 
that Red Cross is actively looking for people to come help in the shelters, particularly 
after Katrina, we know we don’t have all of the knowledge and experience and tools necessary 
to do that on our own. 


And in the last two years there has been a major effort in the Red Cross nationally, fueled by 
Katrina, to involve more people in a partnership relationships to achieve the job. 


Speaker: I see that and have known that but we have the same level of big push outreach 
after Loma Prieta, and many people want to participate. They are not interested in participating 
under the Red Cross umbrella or as part of government. They want to do it as part of 
their own community and without the Red Cross being honest about its kirks, circumstances, 
it hampers funders stepping up and hampers people being able to take an active role. 


 



So my request is, if you say that you have to participate in that way you are going to have 
people not participate. How can we get more Red Cross people to acknowledge what they 
do and don’t do, so people that want to participate but don’t want to join up under the Red 
Cross umbrella have a way to do that. I have get to speak on this and as long as it looks like 
the Red Cross is “doing it,” it makes it hard for initiatives to get funded to do. 


Greg John: I would agree, my position is just a couple of months old, I started on 9/11. Not 
significant to today. 


My job is work with the state and county emergency management agencies and organizations 
to talk about what the Red Cross does do, and just as importantly what it does not do. 


It is an assumption that Red Cross will manage medical shelters. Or they will manage care 
shelters for the flu pandemic. The assumptions, astonishing, they are not true. The Red Cross 
won’t manage shelters for the flu pandemic. So, I go back to my original comment, it is going 
to be active participation and you are a player. 


The Red Cross is the largest organization, that is true. However, it doesn’t do everything and 
doesn’t have the capacity to do everything, and I think now more than every we are reaching 
out to get others to help. Particularly with diversity issues . 


Speaker: Okay. 


Speaker: Herb - - is this on? 
There is a question, but I have to say that I find the call for participation from some with one 
that works for the Red Cross, and the statement that we need more summits like this, more 
opportunities to dialogue, validates the value of anger and legislation. I have been involved 
with the Red Cross in dialoguing since Loma Prieta. 


We have seen the same efforts after every gross failure of the Red Cross, in violating the civil 
rights of people with disabilities. We have seen, every time, a call for something new. And 
I have worked with many individuals, worked with the Red Cross, that are sensitive, knowledgeable 
individuals. It took me a long time to realize that it is the organization that is the 
problem. 


I know that you are nationally supposed to be going through a re-organization, and I know 
that my experience is when your policy statements are in the good, you usually make them 
good. The problem is not policy, it is implementation and procedure. So, what? There is a 
really a question in here, here it comes. I am also so proud of myself for not yelling about this. 


Speaker: And we are too. 


Speaker: What is it in the re-organization that is going to change the nature of the Red 


 0 



Cross itself? To make it more responsive? 


Greg John: I am not sure how to answer that. In the first place it is not just solely the Red 
Cross that is the answer to this issue. It is the special needs environment which as I said 
earlier, means everything and nothing. There are many governmental and community-based 
organizations that are playing in this. 


I believe personally and I believe organizationally, that the Red Cross as well as government 
as Bill mentioned is not really a governmental point agency for some of these issues. So 
some things just are not be accomplished. 


Speaker: Maybe I should have given an example. So I am. When the Red Cross fought us 
after Loma Prieta about who had what role in the shelters and made it clear that they didn’t 
designate shelter spaces, they just manage them. We won that fight. 


Recently, we had it win another one when volunteers for the Red Cross were going out and 
designating shelters as ADA compliant, something which the Red Cross has done, and done 
consistently, and the competence of volunteers to say the least was in question because they 
were designating sites that were not compliant. That is a Red Cross issue. 


What they are managing --the hell they are-- that denies access to someone with a disability 
because of service. That is a Red Cross issue even though it gets covered up with that is our 
position. When the Red Cross who excludes someone who is perfectly capable of obtains 
from others in shelter, that is a Red Cross issue. I recognize that the Red Cross is not the only 
organization to be involved here, nor the only one of us who share blame for these issues, 
my comments were about the Red Cross specifically. 


Greg John: In the service animals, that never has been policy to exclude them, that was 
someone who interpreted and probably thought it was a dog or pet. That should not have 
happened. And, I was unaware of that, I did work in Northridge after the quake and had not 
heard that issue. But that was wrong if that occurred. 


Speaker: I think possibly my question might be a follow up to the prior questions. The time 
to teach disability awareness is not at time of disaster, I think everyone can agree on that. 
And what is the Red Cross and the Department of Social Services, what are both your organizations 
doing to educate our first responders as if -- do you have a component in the training 
that addresses disabilities, specifically? And specifically lays out what is the policy of the Red 
Cross? Or what is the state law in the terms of the social services? 


Because really it comes down to nuts and bolts of people during stressful situations respond 
automatically, respond according to what they believe down in their gut, because it is a crisis. 


So where I might mitigate my statements, when I amount calm and sitting in the summit. I 


 1 



may not mitigate myself under stress, and a disabled person. By the same token I may be 
good at educating people with about when I need and don’t need. I am very patient about 
that, again in the summit. But not as good when I am stressed and maybe I can’t find my 
child. Or my loved one died, and now you have to get out and go to a shelter, you are asking 
people to do something, both volunteers, the first responders and people that are actually 
hired to do this and the disabled people, to do something that is impossible under those 
conditions. The time to address that is during training, that is my question. 


Greg John: I’ll answer first and then pass on to Bill. The Red Cross is enhancing its training 
program. There is a new course that came out in July of 2006 on serving people with disabilities. 
I think that there is going to be some changes in some of the training programs with 
Red Cross internally, probably in the beginning of next year, to expand the knowledge base 
in this area for the volunteers that serve in disasters. 


And it is also my understanding that there may be a position created on the larger disasters 
that is going to be a point person for disabilities communities, both as volunteers for the 
organization and response as well as recipients of services. So, we are working on that. 


Bill Vogel: I think the California Department of Social Services has 4,000 employees, the unit 
responsible for prepping and responding to sheltering is employees. We have no jurisdiction 
over these social service employees out of the county, we do not really do anything to train 
them to be more sensitive to people with disabilities. 


Having been faced with that issue, I tried to attack the issue in another way, and that is create 
a state plan that will provide resources at shelters for people with disabilities. We hope to 
have the plan done by March. We are waiting for federal guidance, and working with June, 
Richard and many others to do that, but until the plan is completed and take that to the 
counties and say, you can use this plan as model to create your own plan. At the local levels. 
We, that, there is not a lot that can change, but believe me I recognize the problem and I am 
trying to do what I can to fix it. 


Speaker: Another one for you. 


Speaker: I guess a big part of frustration from the Red Cross comes to the effect that people 
with disabilities typically are not allowed to volunteer. And, during Katrina when there was 
a call out for volunteers, there is specific guidelines of what you had to be able to do in order 
to volunteer. And that basically eliminated all of us with disabilities. And the mere fact that 
we can be in the shelter working with people, providing services more sensitive to people 
with disabilities than those volunteers that were sent and that did arrive there. 


I am also a sign language interpreter, no interpreters in the shelters --they had difficult time 
getting in, they were turned away or yelled or screamed at. We know where the deaf community 
is and we are trying to get there. But, having a secondary disability myself, I per

 



sonally was not able to go because of fact of the limitations of American Red Cross put on 
volunteers. 


Also, as general note, in all of these command systems there is nothing in there requesting 
durable medical equipment, sign language interpreters, support service workers. I think 
generically we have you had or should have a system that includes those as well, so the 
emergency managers understand those are available to them. 


Just like the fire department knows what, they know what they can pull down in the systems, 
if it is not in there, they don’t understand it. As a global way if we use people with disabilities 
as volunteers instead of trying to train people that didn’t understand about us, we will go a 
long way. 


I hope the Red Cross, whoever they put in the point position, is a person with a disability, 
won’t it is individual be or hidden and they understand our need and a part of community 
and not someone that is going to learn about us. 


Greg John: I would like your name and contact information because the Red Cross does use 
members of disabled community. And I would think it would be wonderful to have a sign 
language interpreter and things like that available. And I know they are used, I could share a 
couple of success stories too. 
Speaker: I am Laura--president of California for Disability Rights, and members have applied 
for training with the Red Cross in wheel chair and told they are not competent to take the 
training. These same people have been CERT trained, and we know have several members in 
wheelchairs have received CERT training be for emergency response. 


I have again, along with Angela, what is the policy of Red Cross, you say you accept them 
but none of our members can be accepted to be trained. There was a recent cap application 
which I respond to, and stated that I would need wheelchair and I was told that the class was 
full. So, what is the policy, because we all get turned down. 


Greg John: The policy is, as position statement I read, stated, inclusiveness for training and 
assignment. 


Speaker: We all get turned down. You need to get the policy down in the operation level 
because the operation level doesn’t follow your policy and policy that isn’t followed is not a 
policy but a hollow promise. 


Greg John: If I can have I business card I would get back with you too. 


Speaker: One more, we had stories of what we hoped would be a success story with Katrina 
in sending a sign language interpreter out there, but I know that their resources weren’t used 


 



for that specific purpose, along the lines of comments from earlier. It was not part of criteria 
of specialized expertise and she ended up being a driver and going around like other volunteers. 
Critical resources clearly needed went unused, and it was very unfortunate. 


Speaker: First I want to thank you for sitting there and taking all this. You are the brunt 
right now of peoples’ frustrations. Secondly - - 


Speaker: The mike is not working. 


Speaker: I want to commend you for taking all that because you are the brunt of everyone’s 
frustrations. I would like to second the comment that I hope your point person when you 
create that position will be someone with a disability or vast emergency of knowledge. 


And my two questions, I think I have three, you said there was a training this summer? I think 
you --I am curious was that done by someone with a disability? And, I heard you said when 
you began that you are the only agency mandated to provide sheltering and rescue. 


Greg John: Non-governmental agency. 


 
Speaker: So the question does say mandated except for - - mandate, I am curious how it 
reads? And then, thirdly, if someone such as myself, if I come to a shelter, I am curious about 
the policy, I need care, but if I bring my own care giver can I be accepted in. 


Greg John: You are supposed to be, yes. 


Speaker: If you can answer the other two questions about the training and mandates . 


Greg John: The training, I don’t know who the authors are so I cannot answer that question.I 
am assuming that they are persons with expertise. 


Speaker: The second question - - policy mandate, I am curious if it reads that you are mandated 
to do this work. 


Greg John: The actual quote said a bunch of words, to prevent, prepare for and respond to 
emergencies, it doesn’t - - except for. 


Speaker: I know a point person would never be able to do everything that needs to get 
done, but I wonder about the Red Cross’s acknowledgement that you are going to take a 
new approach, and partner with communities and a lot of community come in and sit. 


Based on that last comment that people who know disability, know ages come in and have 
this expertise that will help you do a better job. I am wondering about the national policy 
related to partnering, and what the specifics of that supposed new policy is? How will you 


 



allow people to come and work with you side by side? How do you determine who gets to 
come in, how does that work? 


Greg John: Well, I have more of an answer when I come home from Washington this Friday. 
I fly there tomorrow for a meeting, and this will be one of topics that I will discuss. 


June: I wonder if we are in the same meeting. 


Speaker: If you are, you better take some friends along. 


Speaker: I too commend you for putting up with this but I think the day has come when 
people are tired and they are saying what they have been thinking. 


My question, what can we do to influence policy and direction of the American Red Cross, 
besides - - what can we do to make a constitutional change in the Red Cross that is more 
than just words on a piece of paper but it is a reality-based implementation . 


Greg John: I would say two things. Go back to grass roots. I believe things evolve from the 
bottom up. Secondly, if you have anything, you can type it up or email it to me in phrases 
and I’ll move it forward to the national system. That is my job, national system. 


Speaker: Greg, what are you going to take back to Washington, what are you going to recommend 
to the American Red Cross? 


Speaker: He is taking June, but he didn’t know it. 


Speaker: Because I would go back and say we need to create advisory groups of vulnerable 
populations and we have to do it now. What will you take back after that meeting? 


Greg John: I had these thoughts before I came here, but I have a little more emphasis now. 
I am also - - I am going to discuss the pets in shelter issue, because I myself would not leave 
my cat or my dog out. However just as a comment, do you know this is not the mean old 
Red Cross’s answer to not allow pets. It is a public health code that people and animals 
cannot cohabitate. Pet friendly shelters, that is ideal, say your cat is in the cot next to the 
rotweiler that doesn’t get along with cats. 


There are some opportunities that I am not sure are going to work out well. And I have a 
friend with a pet dragon, I am not sure you want it in the cot next to you either. 


Teresa Favuzzi: So, we managed to go over on the question and answer period, but that 
seems appropriate. 


What I would like to do is we are due for a break and if we can take a break and come back in 


 



10 minutes. at 20 after three, and then we will get ourselves into a table discussion and start 
going over these question and start talking about issues together. Thank you. 
(break and table discussions) 


 



Present Priorities for Action 4:00 - 4:45 

Table Presentations 

(program begins) 


Teresa Favuzzi: Okay everyone. So, we are going to come to you and have each table give 
us a sense of what their ideas were, and - - hello. It is good that you are all talking. It is tough 
when you spent all day listening. 
So we are going to take this opportunity to get your ideas and capture this in a couple ways, 
one is with our captioning, it has been a long day. And we are going to use the old fashioned 
way and use a flip chart so we can have a record in writing. 


I am just going to take this mike around and ask your table to tell us your ideas, and I am 
going take it table to table and start here. That is punishment for being closest. Who is 
talking? 


Speaker: Herb. There shall be no more disasters. Never again. 


First priority, we talked about the need for a state-wide advocacy coalition, something that 
insures an implementation agenda that is ongoing, across disability and age. And, this has 
also got to be something insuring the training of new leadership. We complained about the 
Red Cross same thing is true for is, if you have been involved in this for a lot of years, stuff 
happens, you retire once in a while. So that had be a responsibility. Then we looked at three 
issues which have to be priority. Communication, accessible housing. transportation. What 
can we do? 


We looked at a few things, one is that we can provide support to a central organization to 
become a funded central organization. Meaning, go to funder, talk to them, talk to funders, 
also write letters of support and make specific commitments that help arm a central organization 
going in. Saying these are the commitments of time and attention to issues. 


And we thought that we need to consult, we are CF people at that table and we thought that 
we would consult with a lobbyist or someone to determine on each issue whether or not it’s 
an administrative or legislative solution we might be looking for for a particular problem, so 
we don’t head after off in the wrong location. 


Who needs to be involved? God needs to be involved. We thought media, but not to 
provide PR, but to be at a table to talk on committees about emergency captioning. That real 
life consumers be the advocates, and not consumers who are advocates, consumer, people 
with disabilities not working for any organization or spending their lives advocating, they 
need to inject a little reality. 


 



And a model for this would be proposition three, if you look for funding, like for funding that 
not only spending money on training but also on expenses, to bring them to meetings, not 
used for just travel, but child care or whatever it takes. 


Obviously there were companies like PG&E that need partners. Red Cross needs to be 
involved as part of a non-Red Cross coalition. 
Interesting experience, I think. And funder- 
we need to get funders in, involved because they need to be educated that this is a priority, 
both at state and local levels. To try to prep them to look at their priorities for funding. I 
think that was it. 


Teresa Favuzzi: Great, thank you, all right. Walk, walking up the block. 


Speaker: I am Dani Anderson -- our priorities for action, legislation, education and support 
and communications,. Firstly, we think we should mandate legislation advisory committees 
for vulnerable populations, including homeland security and Red Cross. Pass legislation for 
attendants to pass barricades. And create legislation on a policy for shelter accessibility in 
rural or small communities. 


Teresa Favuzzi: Can do you that one more time? Now you know what she learned in the 
leadership. 


Speaker: Breathe. 


Speaker: Create legislation or a policy created for shelter accessibility in rural or small communities. 
And then next, require that students with disabilities should be prepared equally 
for a disaster, there should be a - - there should be legislation that requires schools to have 
accessibility plans. 


Youth and others with disability should not be segregated during emergency evacuations. 
Youth. And be sure that interpreters are also brought in to preparedness plans. 


Mandate language supports, assistive technology, and other equipment should be made 
available and planned for in preparedness plans and in disasters. 


Be sure organizations and agencies are defining what “prepared “means. 


Inform television stations on the importance of being accessible for people with disabilities. 


Use accessible reading and language levels to inform people of disasters. 


And encourage wireless networks to inform people about emergencies through text 
messages. 


 



And the way we would do that is to build ongoing partnerships, one way is to use respectability 
conference, regarding disaster prepare preparedness, maybe a track to work on issue 
through the year. 


Secondly, meet with legislature to educate and talk about the advisory committee idea. 


And thirdly, hold a second summit or conference to bring additional stakeholders to the 
table to further the discussion, build a coalition that can advance education and advocate for 
legislation. 


And lastly develop a neighborhood network. 


Teresa Favuzzi: Okay. All right. Okay, Norma? 


Teresa Favuzzi: I don’t know how do you this all day. 


Norma Vescovo: Our first action, priorities, having a case manager at every shelter funded 
by the state that will be to assist people and find people in shelter to see what assistance 
they might need. 


And to supplement whatever is necessary for them to stay there or go back home. 


And to, funding for a personal assistant, to go to the shelter, once the person is found, that 
could assist the person directly in the shelter. 


Given the right of advocate to enter a shelter and not be a denied because barriers of set up 
for that. 


Require representation on SEMS asking that SEMS be broken down to where if they are covering 
more than a population of 1,000,000, that they make limitation on saying 1,000,000, 
that they have either sub-committees or other committees to make sure all areas of community 
are covered. So, it will give us more inclusion. 


Give a - - have each pharmacist be able to write a TAR for an individual who needs medication. 
As long as he has some reasonable way to show credibility, shows that he has these 
prescriptions, either a bottle to show that these prescriptions are needed, even if it is for a 
week. And giving the pharmacist access to the state’s information, where possible, in order 
to fulfill the prescriptions. 


What can we do? What action can we take? The first thing we are going to do is scream and 
yell. Then we will look for if there is anything, existing legislation, or policies or procedures 
that represent or, what we are asking for that we can modify or create new. Serve on local 
and state or county or city committees, whatever we need to do to be involve in the drawing 


 



people. 


We need to be involved to effectively take action. We are saying who should be involved. 
Persons with disabilities. Consumer-based organizations. National organizations. Local 
groups, whatever we can do it pull in whatever groups, but these groups should be involved. 
As much as possible bringing in new people, build a coalition. I have to agree with that, to 
bring in new people and try to introduce them. We didn’t talk - - we will always have ongoing 
partnership, i have been around long enough to know that. 


Teresa Favuzzi: So, was there a table? 


Speaker: Can I say one thing, the - - 


Carol Risley: Just on the issue of TARS, because so many people moved to Medicare part D, 
there is a whole new issue that is working with insurance companies, so add that onto that 
little item. 


Speaker: I accept that addendum. 
Ana Maria Jones: The other thing, just a couple things, there are really inexpensive inclusions 
or solution that would help everyone not only in a disaster but right now. Little things 
like making sure that every consumer carries a little LED flashlight. Great for signaling or all 
sorts of things, or high pitch whistle. Really low cost, these two things are less than $1.20, 
and we are talking high utility and light weight, low cost and truly it would lower the crime 
wave of everyone if you walked around with a whistle and flashlight. 


With these of simple solution, you can go to the website and find out for more. The other 
piece, do a campaign that is really about educating the public. Not branding particular disaster 
response agencies but educating public on simple skills so we are literally raising the bar 
for everyone to fully participate and targeting agencies that serve people with disabilities. 
Such that we are really making it possible for all people to understand the bigger issue. 


I would say that, immigrate full to government Red Cross that every single thing they put out 
servings me, but that is not that helpful to the world. I am not the one that is going to have 
the hardest time evacuating, and if we shift how we plan weld wake {r} make it so everyone 
could survive and prosper, that is not the focus yet but we need to be the one that is advocate 
for that level of awareness an campaign. Rising tide raising all ships rather then drowning 
these who could not swim. 
Speaker: I am disappointed that you didn’t share your potty initiatives. Because everyone 
poops, as the book says. What better place to educate everyone but in the bathroom. And 
Ann Marie has wonderful potty posters on the website, I recommend those, an easy way to 
educate. 


 0 



We focused more on the framework as opposed to the deliverables that everyone has shares 
thus. We talked about these deliverables but mostly focused on setting up a framework to 
get there. First priority, let’s look at developing a vision and mission statement for what we 
want and we need to achieve. Then create a roadmap for the deliverables and action steps. 
Secondly we talked about shifting focus and paradigm from vulnerable populations or 
special needs to what Jim called “functional perspective “. 
And creating both at a state wide hub the functional access coordinator as well as function 
and access service teams. 


June and her is assistant Brenda team. We have a layout, a wonderful road map for that 
setting up of framework for that, and we see that as a great place for to us look at starting 
pilot projects. Throughout the state and looking at regional team to focus on the needs of 
regions. 


Various areas have certain disasters that might be unique, as well as different population and 
geographic regions. Urban verses rural and looking at what is needed in those particular 
regions and then create a set of objectives out of that. Starting with first, a needs assessment. 
Incorporating best practices of what is already in place and what has been tested and 
worked. 
And for example, suggested that perhaps Florida and their sheltering a little further ahead 
than the other areas of the nation, because they have to deal with ongoing hurricanes and 
they have a high senior population. There might be some practices already in place that 
practices in the just policies. 


And then what can we do to take action. Create a vision of access to readiness. And look at 
what we need to do to access to readiness and create a roadmap with objectives and deliverables 
to get there and make sure that the stakeholders are partners to this vision. 


And then secondly, work with legislature to make funding a priority, especially down to the 
service agencies. And also, to make sure that regulations and laws are in place that require 
access compliance. 


And then lastly, who needs to be involved? All of us, who are sitting here. 
All of partners. From the federal agencies, state OES and state departments, down to all of 
the other organizations that are here, we need to stay connected, build a coalition. 


As well as the transportation providers who are not here, public health department who are 
not here, and also include private businesses, because they can address better --they sometimes 
can address the systems better, such as communication in multiple formats. 


Teresa Favuzzi: All right, coming your way. Who is doing the speaking? 


 1 



Speaker: We are collaborating at that table. We are passing it around. 


We actually had a fascinating discussion because we have such a mix of folks here, so we had 
state, county, local and repetition. We spent a lot of time trying to understand each other’s 
system and had a rich conversation on that. So, hopefully folks will step in to add. 


But the first item was to develop standards for policy issues. In other words, create best practices 
for a lot of policies which may help many responders with getting over their fear of how 
to set up systems that are accessible in their local communities. Did I capture that? And we 
didn’t put these in any priority order, ready to go to to number 2. 


Number 2 - - kind of builds on number 1, or gets more specific talking about having a standardized 
system where the state taking the load on developing a standard system for communication. 
That includes --I’ll just use Vic’s term, a pecking order for different communication, 
as they broke down, so there is some continuity over governmental jurisdiction, there is 
some standardization. 


Speaker: And the third item that we spent time talking about, was how to get the voice in at 
local community. So, what we came up with related to that was use the 1451 legislation, as a 
vehicle to create a pipeline. Now, that is going to mean working with the committee at state 
levels but to work to make sure that, those voices get down to the local levels, because obviously 
there is a state wide committee coming out of legislation but you want to, a way that 
the voice filters down to the local community. 


I don’t know that we had examples of how to do that, but there needs to be a mechanism to 
get that voice throughout. Beyond state level and get down to the local regions and counties. 
Does that make sense? Anything to add? 


Teresa Favuzzi: Coming your way. 


Speaker: Short and sweet. Ditto. 


Teresa Favuzzi: Can I write that. 
Speaker: We believe that people with disabilities should infiltrate government and make 
sure we are there, make the first responders respond to us, while they are practicing instead 
of when it is real. 


And for those exercises to insure that state and local government are providing accommodation 
and transportation to allow people with disabilities to participate. Another one, to work 
with Americorps as partnership to prepare the community. And also work with the office of 
education and cal serve, to work on their learning activities. 


 



To start back with the kids again and to get them prepared, similar to the drop, cover and roll 
that we all grew up with in California, that saved many of your lives during the Northridge 
lives, at least stops injured. And if we can get the kids to talk to their parents and grandparents 
about emergency preparedness and what they need to do, and where they are going to 
go and develop the plans --I think they can go from the bottom up and top down with the 
legislation. 


And then to develop a resource list to incorporate rate in to - - that has issues such as braille, 
captioning, interpreters, durable medical equipment, specific ones verses just DME. 


Teresa Favuzzi: Can you say that one more time? 


 
Speaker: Develop resource list. To incorporate in to names so people know how to call, like 
a registry. So we know where the find the equipment as well. And as a side, for communication, 
for some people, it means one thing, for other it means something else, like wireless 
devices, cell phones, or it might be sign language or assistive listening device or the ability to 
communicate from one agency to another. 


I think we need to be clear what we mean by “communication “and insure that it is there for 
everyone and also the system is become run. A way that everyone gets the information. 
Anything else? 


Speaker: And last one was the -


Speaker: Pre-training, trying on local levels to find out where that is, for the most part what 
Barbara shared with us, was that it was the cities. So starting with the cities, moving to the 
county, but getting - - getting the training, of first responders, volunteers or paid responders, 
like police, to get the training they will need before disaster happens, because I don’t 
think that is happening yet, that is one of priorities, and action, to go to the city to start that 
process. Locally. 


Teresa Favuzzi: All right. Coming around. I think this is the last table, but not the least. 


Speaker: A lot of things that everyone is said we have said too, so I am not going to go into 
everything. But I’ll prioritize. We have also training is one thing but I think in addition to 
training it is educating people, you can train someone how to teach someone but you have 
also educate people, the culture of certain people with certain disabilities. And as an addendum 
to that, we have to make sure when we train them, we have to make sure we are aware 
of different languages that everyone is using, depending on the community so we are prepared. 
In Oakland, we have that constantly. 


You repeated everything everyone else said. So what we can do, to take action on priorities? 
Let’s not re-invent the wheel, because I have been told that the county of San Francisco has a 


 



database of all of accessible shelters. 


So let’s make sure we communicate with each other and someone that has set a system up, 
we can take that, let’s see how they prepare it had and get a list of all tests that we need, 
there are a check list of items that tell you how something should be accessible. 


And last but not least, effectively taking action is advocating, but from grass roots and going 
up, trickle up event, and try to start a little bit, don’t try at the top, start at bottom and get 
everyone educated. So that when we get to the to top we are all on the same page. Anyone 
want to add? 


 



Closing 4:45 - 5:00 

Teresa Favuzzi, Executive Director, California Foundation for Independent Living Centers 

Teresa Favuzzi: All right. Holy cow we are on schedule. We are ahead of time. You are 
amazing. 


Okay, Brenda. Come on up. 


So, next steps. 


What happens after today? That is one of the most critical questions. This was meant to 
be an initial dialogue, this was meant to be an initial dialogue to educate state folks about 
the issues around the disability community, and also to introduce the disability community 
and state folk to each other to begin to see where the intersections are and how to work 
together. To spark dialogue and get something moving. So what we have is - - June’s assistant 
true. 


We have a set of priorities that you have put together and what we will do is pull together a 
transcript of today’s events, and be contacting you, in some way, as we move forward. You 
want to talk a little bit, Brenda. 


Speaker: I am really shy. We looked to you to tell us if - - Herb is equally painfully shy. The 
way we need to work together as a community of folks with disabilities and with the state 
and providers, is to look at how we can come together, look at common issues that need to 
be developed and come up with a way, in uniform united voice --remember the old get the 
pie and we will discuss the pieces-- to discuss how we will go forth to educate, enlighten and 
persuade our peers to be able to understand this issue. 


So we believe and hope in the next period after you receive this that we will be able to 
develop a structure by which we can get input from each organization and representatives 
that represent folks with disabilities in all categories --aging, disability, deafness and blindness-- 
and talk about how to put the pieces together, so we can say in unified voices, we are 
not going to be forgotten in the next emergency. 


You are going to listen to us and put things together that it is not without us but we are considered 
equal players in our community and not a second thought. We are hoping that you 
can confer with us after you see that and come up with ideas to do that, both state and local. 
And we want it from both CFILC and center for disabilities, thank you for taking the time. You 
will hear from her in the very near future. 


Thank you very much. 


 



This event is endorsed by the California Office of Emergency Services, 


Office of Homeland Security, California Service Corps, Department of Rehabilitation, 
State Independent Living Council, State Council of Developmental Disabilities, 
the Pacific ADA Center (Pacific DBTAC), the California Disability Community Action 


Network, Collaborating Agencies Responding to Disasters, 
and the California Council of the Blind.